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The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive.

Ursula K. Le Guin

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Candle Cast Light Shadow
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
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
The light is the left hand of darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Hanf Left Light
The story is not in the plot but in the telling.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Plot Story Tell
We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Freedom Imagine Injustice Knew Live
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
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Capitalism Die Growth Imperative Interdependence Limit Odd Radical Stand
Besides, when you say you’re a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it’s kind of irresistible.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Annoy Besides Bigot Demist Fant Irresistible Kind Ladies Musch Old Prissy Say
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
Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to unbuild walls.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build Own Prison Wall
The worst walls are never the ones you find in your way. The worst walls are the ones you put there .
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Find never One Put Wall Way Wost
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
No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Forever Last Star
Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Art Being Change Human Poet Resist Word
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

The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive.

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The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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