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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

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balck Mark Pulp Story Unread Word
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bad Consider Encouragement Habit Happiness Pedant Sophisticate Stupid Trouble
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
Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Awake Courahege Injustice Make Rule
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Blow Field Grass Know Like Master Part Purpose Thread
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
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
It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Activate Eye Human Last Light Machine Need One Perform Plug Reliable
The light is the left hand of darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Hanf Left Light
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
You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Change Crush Idea Ignore Refuse Suppressing Think
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
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
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
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Compact Complex Crucial Device Efficiency Extremely Itself Little Look Often Pleasant Shown Technology

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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