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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

The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Balance Candle Cast Light Shadow World
To see that your life is a story while you’re in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Help Living Middle See Story Well While
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
Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Awake Courahege Injustice Make Rule
Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Call Chnagebale Ever Faithless Honor Jealous Men Sexual Some Threatened Through Truth Women
The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Clench Cruelty Dull Eye Fire Great Hand Hidden Men Mountain Sea Shark
The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Affection Anyone Deep Delight Hunter Meed Mother Nurse Socialist Source Successful Whole
As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Archive Children Compassion Great Hope Imagination Perception Scientist
You can go home again…so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Asian Home Long never Place Understand
Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Death Hand Join Left Life Light Lover Lying Right Together Two
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
It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Activate Eye Human Last Light Machine Need One Perform Plug Reliable
The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

End Justice Mean never
And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Course Creation Participate Read Size Soul Temper
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
Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Blood Hope Poison Run Take Tale Teeth

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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