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Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

Ursula 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 GUIN

Clench Cruelty Dull Eye Fire Great Hand Hidden Men Mountain Sea Shark
Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Death Hand Join Left Life Light Lover Lying Right Together Two
Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Function Galaxy Machine Purpose Thing Universe Useful
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
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 GUIN

Endure Glow Gone Save Sea Selfhood Treasure Yourself
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

Delight Freedom Use Way Winter Word
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
As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Children Do Kitten Mindless Other Powerful Want
Life goes on, even if two-headed and glowing faintly in the dark.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Dark Even Fainty Glow Goes Headed Life Two
If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you’re fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Book Differently Fifteen Fifty Raed Seem Something Tell Understand
I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Alternative Come Fear Hard See Society Stricken Think Through Time Voice Want Will Writer
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Creative Adult Survive
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

End Good Journey Matters Towards
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
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
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Content Evil Hard Hold Soul Very

Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

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Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?

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