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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

Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anybody Anything Hardly Introvert Rule Write
All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anotherrmone Knowledge Local Partial Truth Untrue
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
What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Destroy Goes Itself Long Too Unchanged
Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally, language used wrongly, breeds lies, half-truths, confusion. In that sense you can say that grammar is morality. And it is in that sense that I say a writer’s first duty is to use language well.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Best Breed Careless Grammarly Language Morality Stupidity Truth Writer
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
And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Came Done Forgot Have Once Remember Saw Sunset Western Wind
We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adapt Appetite Control Destroy Fast Ourselves Violence World
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Deny Dragon Eaten Existence Often People
Life–evolution–the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy–existence itself–is essentially change.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Energy Evolution Existence Itself Life Matter Time Whole
In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bite Blood Come End Hope Live Middle Position Run Take Tale Telling
The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Aspect Civilization Denied Fear Form Institutionalize Know Male Misogyny Shape
You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Down Learn Sit Until
The light is the left hand of darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Hanf Left Light
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
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
What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Answer Canned Catch Eaten Metaphor Original Source Suppose Swing Word
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 GUIN

Ate Dead Man Next Order Out Panda Pistol Pull Room Salad Shot Table Tea Walk
Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anything Art Else Entirely Fell Increasingly Itself Mysterious Translate Translation Writing
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
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
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
Every group we belong to – by gender, sex, race, religion, age – is an in-group, surrounded by an immense out-group, living next door and all over the world, who will be alive as far into the future as humanity has a future. That out-group is called other people. It is for them that we write.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Age Future Gender Group Humanity Immense Next People Race Religion Surrounded World
But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Another Dragon Meet One Read Thing
I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

After Care Come Dragon Morning Seen Wind
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 GUIN

Change Come Confuse Good Goodness Intent Thing Try Well
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Darkness End Must Must Heard Safety Silence Star

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes