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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

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Care Mean Person Say Winter Word
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
To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Arre Great One Oneself Thing
All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Anotherrmone Knowledge Local Partial Truth Untrue
Hope is a slow business.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Business Hope Slow
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Great Societies Society Story Use Wheel
A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it… By using words well they strengthen their souls.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Care Mena Say Soul Strengthen Use Well Word Writer
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
A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Repair Transdended Wrong
A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adult Box Either Kid Speak Upset Writer
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
The light is the left hand of darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Darkness Hanf Left Light
But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Another Dragon Meet One Read Thing
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
Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Children Good Perfectly Well Real True Unicorn
To the lives that haven’t been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Back Breathed Gift Live Love Loved Yet
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
Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can’t step into the same river twice.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Moment Nothing Remark River Same Step Twice
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
Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Being Blind Business Grieving Learn Strange
What good is music? None … and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, ‘You are irrelevant’; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, ‘
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Amies Arrogant Factory Good Irrelevant Leader Music None Point State World
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Country Dark Earth Root
Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other–outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Civilize Man Master Other Outside Rest Self Subservient Underneath
You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Down Learn Sit Until
We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Change Grandmother Matter Moon Mother Virgin Wife
Well, we think that time “passes,” flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Always Discover Forward Future Move New Pass Past Think Time
Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Function Galaxy Machine Purpose Thing Universe Useful

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes