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
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin on down
Ursula K. Le Guin161 quotes“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.”
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More from Ursula 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 The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries-the realists of a larger reality.
Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Original quotes
From our community writers
They bleed not in the mouth but through their ink – indelible and dark.
Juana GarciaJuana Garcia I would rather shoot my arrows than keep them in my bow, I would rather risk it all than risk nothing at all.
ShamaShama I wish I knew then all of the things I know now that I am enough.
TMCTMC I feel like I’m on fire, fighting for a moment on respite – I’m not placing bets.
M.K. StandbyM.K. Standby I found him in all the chaos, and that was when my world started making sense again.
MoomerMoomer The judgement that people cast on you for how you do or do not appear is nothing more than just a projection of their own wounds.
Taj AroraTaj Arora Be grateful for what you have now, even if it’s not everything you wanted.
Sonia SabnisSonia Sabnis It seems strange how we look in the same mirror, yet what stares back, is so painfully different.
Chris AllchinChris Allchin
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Aaron NevilleAaron Neville It’s okay to doubt yourself, it’s okay to feel down; just never give up.
Aaron PatzerAaron Patzer If I can slow it down in my mind, things will be fine.
Aaron RodgersAaron Rodgers Try to bring me down, but you will never succeed because I’m always moving upward. Maybe not before, but now … I am.
Aaron CarterAaron Carter At which time the repulsor puts out its final effort and slows you down so you crash quite slowly into the surface.” “Crash.” “Quite slowly.” Face & Luke
Aaron AllstonAaron Allston I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs. I’ve been on both sides of it all, I guess. So there’s not one specific event or thought that I’m dealing with or drawing from necessarily.
Aaron BrunoAaron Bruno Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below!
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold