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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

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
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Country Dark Earth Root
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 GUIN

Endure Glow Gone Save Sea Selfhood Treasure Yourself
Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud’s terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Height Realistic Reality Surrealistic Traditional
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Creative Adult Survive
Safety lies in catering to the in-group. We are not all brave. All I would ask of writers who find it hard to question the universal validity of their personal opinions and affiliations is that they consider this:
URSULA K. LE GUIN

All Ask Brave Catering Group Lie Opinion Personal Question Safety Validity Writer
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Crazy Live Person Sane World
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
Every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Amazon Content Contentment Culture Every Book Made Purchase Vote
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
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 GUIN

Different Fiction Good Kind Name Science Think Write
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
Those who build walls are their own prisoners.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build Own Prisoner Wall
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
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
We read books to find out who we are.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Find Out Read

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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