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We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.

Ursula K. Le Guin

The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Above Abyss Always Dance Hollow Place Terrible
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Blood Hope Poison Run Take Tale Teeth
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Deny Dragon Eaten Existence Often People
We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don’t, our lives get made up for us by other people .
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Guide Made People Show Skill Taught
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Great Societies Society Story Use Wheel
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud’s terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Height Realistic Reality Surrealistic Traditional
Well, we think that time “passes,” flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Always Discover Forward Future Move New Pass Past Think Time
Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Children Good Perfectly Well Real True Unicorn
Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Been Ever Hero Nobody Say Told
What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Answer Canned Catch Eaten Metaphor Original Source Suppose Swing Word
The story is not in the plot but in the telling.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Plot Story Tell
The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balck Mark Pulp Story Unread Word
As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bach Book Creation Note Page Participate Play Read Select Suite Word
All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anotherrmone Knowledge Local Partial Truth Untrue
A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Repair Transdended Wrong

We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.

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We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.

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