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
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin on compact
Ursula K. Le Guin161 quotes“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.”
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
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 GuinUrsula 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
Original quotes
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Caught inside my mind trapped between its horrid lines losing precious time.
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AurthurAurthur Nothing is more terrifying than falling in love.
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Meet the writers
More on compact
The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority.
Henrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen When a man sells eleven ounces for twelve, he makes a compact with the devil, and sells himself for the value of an ounce.
Henry Ward BeecherHenry Ward Beecher Justice is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.
EpicurusEpicurus There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.
EpicurusEpicurus Like the cobra, you remain coiled in a loose but compact position and your strike should be felt before it is seen.
Bruce LeeBruce Lee