Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes
He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.
Quotes to Explore
-
I've always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system.
-
I was a dispatcher, flat-tire fixer, changed the oil, fixed the fan belts. There was nothing too good for me.
-
Acting is doing. It's not speaking; it's behavior. It's something happening, even if you're only listening.
-
The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.
-
Socrates was famously executed for his philosophical and political beliefs. I wondered what would happen if you had a similar character, who was so relentlessly questioning of everything? In a modern society, would we be any more or any less tolerant of that kind of character?
-
There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it.
-
My parents immigrated from Italy and spent 40 days and 40 stinking nights on a boat so we didn't have to eat things like gizzards.
-
A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls.
-
I will always be the way I was a couple years ago before anything happened. And that's to my parents' credit, my amazing parents who have been around me my whole life and raised me right. I'm very happy with what has happened so far.
-
Out of the depths, O Lord, out of the depths,' begins the most beautiful of the services of our church, and it is out of the depths of my life that I must bring the incidents of this story.
-
It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.
-
I love fashion and there is no easier way to express yourself than through the clothes you wear.
-
I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.
-
I am capable of much more. I guess every artist feels that way. If you are satisfied, you begin to stagnate. I want to grow as an actress every day. There are so many things you can learn, and you can improve upon your skills and abilities every day.
-
And a third thing is the understanding of the Church as a community, a communion which is just a hierarchy but the people of God, whose servants are the priests and bishops.
-
When I am in Egypt, I am along for the ride - I am a privileged outsider, but an outsider nonetheless.
-
It's a tough town, it's a loving town, it's a supportive town, and that's why so many great news people, journalists have come through Chicago or are from Chicago.
-
I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism.
-
I was an undergraduate at Princeton, and I was pressed by the math department to go on to graduate school. Actually they gave me fellowships that paid my way, otherwise I would not have been able to continue.
-
Every year, I think you earn the right to eat cake on your birthday.
-
I try to think of the social function of fiction as drawing the individual toward larger social and political questions. But I'm also very comfortable in saying that my novel - any novel - doesn't matter as much as larger questions of how we can see justice done.
-
I don't wish to defend everything that has been done in the name of Utopia. But I think many of the attacks misconceive its nature and function. As I have tried to suggest, utopia is not mainly about providing detailed blueprints for social reconstruction. Its concern with ends is about making us think about possible worlds. It is about inventing and imagining worlds for our contemplation and delight. It opens up our minds to the possibilities of the human condition.
-
He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.
