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Reading is performance. The reader–the child under the blanket with a flashlight, the woman at the kitchen table, the man at the library desk–performs the work.

Ursula K. Le Guin

While we read a novel, we are insane-bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices… Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Banker Believe Existence Hear Insane Novel People Raed Voice
Listen.’ For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Break Build Down House Listen Nothing Point Save Sky Themselves Uncare
What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Destroy Goes Itself Long Too Unchanged
A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Burson Capacity Child Competition Do Doing Economic Free Grow Guilt Joy Need Ownership Will
We read books to find out who we are.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Find Out Read
I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Certainty Earn Happiness Happy Keep Often Reason Thing
The light is the left hand of darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Hanf Left Light
To hear, one must be silent.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Hear Must One Silent
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
Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Deeper Isaknd Making Moon Older Power Root Tree Woman
You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose…
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Any Die Forever Given Immortal Live Man Nothing Thing
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
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
We’re each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Alone Dark Each Hand Hold Out Sure
If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Chance Come Evade Fulfill Home Joy May Pleasure Suffer
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Content Evil Hard Hold Soul Very

Reading is performance. The reader–the child under the blanket with a flashlight, the woman at the kitchen table, the man at the library desk–performs the work.

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Reading is performance. The reader–the child under the blanket with a flashlight, the woman at the kitchen table, the man at the library desk–performs the work.

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Popular Authors

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