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Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.

Ursula K. Le Guin

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Candle Cast Light Shadow
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
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
First sentences are doors to worlds.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

First Sentence World
Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this:
URSULA K. LE GUIN

All Ask Brave Catering Group Lie Opinion Personal Question Safety Validity Writer
Listen.’ For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Break Build Down House Listen Nothing Point Save Sky Themselves Uncare
Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can’t step into the same river twice.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Moment Nothing Remark River Same Step Twice
We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anyone Attain Attainable Chance Demand Freedom Imagine Justice
For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Change Free Man Resist Restless Rigidly Soften Virtue
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
As men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation – you may hate it or deify it; but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality and its human reality.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Class Done Human Nation Reality Series Women
No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Forever Last Star
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
You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build City Country Dictator Explore Map Obedient Populace Rule
And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Course Creation Participate Read Size Soul Temper
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

Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.

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Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.

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