Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes
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I think hard times are coming. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.
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Go to bed; tired is stupid.
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'The law of evolution is that the strongest survives.''Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical.'
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We of Es Toch tell a little myth, which says that in the beginning the Creator told a great lie. For there was nothing at all, but the Creator spoke, saying, It exists. And behold, in order that the lie of God might be God’s truth, the universe at once began to exist.
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Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.
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What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.
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'It is not right to want to die,' the Summoner said....'For the very old, the very ill, it may be. But life is given us. Surely it’s wrong not to hold and treasure that great gift!''Death also is given us,' said the king.
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Men who fight wars in Winter don’t live till Spring.
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It is a terrible thing, this kindess that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give.
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Elegance is a small price to pay for enlightenment, and I was glad to pay it.
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Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping. Thus to Ged, who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given him that gift that only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakeable trust.
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Manipulated, one manipulates others.
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The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.
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'In innocence there is no strength against evil,' said Sparrowhawk, a little wryly. 'But there is strength in it for good.'
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One voice, speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies, given time; plenty of time.
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There’s people all over these parts, and maybe beyond, who think, as you said, that nobody can be wise alone. So these people try to hold to each other.
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Before the gods and after, always, are the streams. Caves, stones, hills. Trees. The earth. The darkness of the earth.
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A forest ecology is a delicate one. If the forest perishes, its fauna may go with it. The Athshean word for world is also the word for forest.
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As she stumbled forward she cried out in her mind, which was as dark, as shaken as the subterranean vault, 'Forgive me. O my Masters, O unnamed ones, most ancient ones, forgive me, forgive me!'There was no answer. There had never been an answer.
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Maybe that’s what the Masters are afraid of. Maybe celibacy isn’t as necessary as the Rule of Roke teaches. Maybe it’s not a way of keeping the power pure, but of keeping the power to themselves.
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Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.
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Armed men don’t sit down and talk.
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We scarcely know how much of our pleasure and interest in life comes to us through our eyes until we have to do without them; and part of that pleasure is that the eyes can choose where to look. But the ears can't choose where to listen.
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All I know is the dark, the night underground. And that’s all there really is. That’s all there is to know, in the end. The silence, and the dark. You know everything, wizard. But I know one thing - the one true thing!