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Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.

Ursula K. Le Guin

It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

All Before Know Need Place Rare
A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adult Box Either Kid Speak Upset Writer
All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

All Carefully Deserve Leave Maker Patiently Spirit
My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Earth Human Planet Run Species Spoil World
When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Always Change Consciousness Genuine Life Message Myth Rise
I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Being Believe Child Exist Faculties Human Imagination Mature Power
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 GUIN

Burden Choice Easy Freedom Gift Great Strange Hard heavy Load Made Spirit Undertake
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Darkness End Must Must Heard Safety Silence Star
Music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Another Kind Music Think Way
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Content Evil Hard Hold Soul Very
If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Chance Come Evade Fulfill Home Joy May Pleasure Suffer
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 GUIN

Affinity Another Declare Deny Different Person Yourself
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Country Dark Earth Root
Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Feel Fiction Inanity Naturalistic Nearest Poetry Safe Wilderness
First sentences are doors to worlds.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

First Sentence World
We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adapt Appetite Control Destroy Fast Ourselves Violence World
The story is not in the plot but in the telling.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Plot Story Tell
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
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 GUIN

Being Blind Business Grieving Learn Strange
To the lives that haven’t been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Back Breathed Gift Live Love Loved Yet
We are been taught to be ashamed of not being ‘outgoing’. But a writer’s job is ingoing.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ashamed Been Job Outgoing Taught Winter
To have a choice at all is to be privileged.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Choose Privilege
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Crazy Live Person Sane World
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Capitalism Die Growth Imperative Interdependence Limit Odd Radical Stand
I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Certainty Earn Happiness Happy Keep Often Reason Thing
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Capitalism Inescapable King Live Power Right Seem
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

Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.

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Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.

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Popular Authors

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