Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
URSULA K. LE GUIN
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin I don’t think ‘science fiction’ is a very good name for it, but it’s the name that we’ve got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the next table dead, and walked out.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin 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 GuinUrsula K. Le Guin as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin Life–evolution–the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy–existence itself–is essentially change.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Original quotes
From our community writers
Since you are gone, I collect the stars each night building my own night sky, so I have something to hold onto forever.
Laura ChouetteLaura Chouette Can anybody hear me? Are my words going to waste I need to believe there was a purpose to all the pain?
Allie MillerAllie Miller The universe hears what you say, but it knows what you mean.
Brianna PastorBrianna Pastor Enough of this. The next one I love will return my passion.
Iestyn TudorIestyn Tudor It’s unconditional; their chemistry is unconditional – forever.
Ophelia ScarlettOphelia Scarlett I love you so much that it hurts and that’s the problem I love you so much that it hurts.
Olivia CliffordOlivia Clifford Let’s always bloom, savor and delight others with our beauty.
Mariya FedulovaMariya Fedulova Shadows follow me the way a vulture stalks death. One small step ahead.
Danielle MontgomeryDanielle Montgomery
Meet the writers
More on slow
Society is so slow. A feminist is a bore.
Agnes VardaAgnes Varda Slow progress is better than no progress.
AnonymousAnonymous I don’t like to play slow or softly.
Adrian BeltreAdrian Beltre Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.
LucretiusLucretius That is much of what I think the writer’s job is – to slow people down.
Adam HaslettAdam Haslett That aesthetic of the Star Wars universe: the do-it-yourself, hotrod ethic that George Lucas exported from his childhood, is exactly the same kind of soul behind what we do and build for the show.
Adam SavageAdam Savage ROH is not a company that says ok we’re going to throw all this money in and let’s just go for it. ROH has the business approach of slow but steady.
Adam ColeAdam Cole If the road is beautiful, walk the road slowly; be a turtle, be a snail and even better than this: Stop walking; live the road fully!
Mehmet Murat IldanMehmet Murat Ildan