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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

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
I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Back Forgotten Give Light Much World
Besides, when you say you’re a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it’s kind of irresistible.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Annoy Besides Bigot Demist Fant Irresistible Kind Ladies Musch Old Prissy Say
You are in the country where you make up the rules, the laws. You are both dictator and obedient populace. It is a country nobody has ever explored before. It is up to you to make the maps, to build the cities.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Build City Country Dictator Explore Map Obedient Populace Rule
We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Adapt Appetite Control Destroy Fast Ourselves Violence World
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Crazy Live Person Sane World
If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you’re fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Again Book Differently Fifteen Fifty Raed Seem Something Tell Understand
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
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel… is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Book Essential Feel Find Guide Imaginary Ourselves Out People Real Think Understanding
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
Listen.’ For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Break Build Down House Listen Nothing Point Save Sky Themselves Uncare
Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Bright Die Empty Hawk Light Only Silence Sky Word
Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Delight Freedom Use Way Winter Word
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
Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.
URSULA K. LE GUIN

Absolute Freedom Responsibility
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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