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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

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

Candle Cast Light Shadow
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
Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Been Ever Hero Nobody Say Told
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
There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Age Around Choose Else Everybody Joint Life Make Rest Virtue Whether
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
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
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 important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Devotion Discover Find Important Little Thing
If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. …But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

God No Proven Religion
You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Buy Make Nowhere Revolution Spirit
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
as a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bought Free Freedom Fresh Loneliness Solitude Writer
To have a choice at all is to be privileged.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Choose Privilege
Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Know Language Lie Misuse Need Remember Round
Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Fantasy Feel Fiction Inanity Naturalistic Nearest Poetry Safe Wilderness

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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