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The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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

Book Compact Complex Crucial Device Efficiency Extremely Itself Little Look Often Pleasant Shown Technology
The story is not in the plot but in the telling.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Plot Story Tell
What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Destroy Goes Itself Long Too Unchanged
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
I think,” Tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, “that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Back Breath Live Made Said Soft Strange Think Voice
For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man’s toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Change Free Man Resist Restless Rigidly Soften Virtue
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
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
If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Affinity Another Declare Deny Different Person Yourself
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
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
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 only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ask Matter One Only Question Really Yourself
The creative adult is the child who has survived.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Child Creative Adult Survive
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
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 unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

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The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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