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Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

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Famous Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

“Saying that, he was suddenly himself again, despite his lunatic hair and eyes: a man whose personal dignity went so deep as to be nearly invisible... It was more than diginity. Integrity? Wholeness? Like a block of wood not carved. The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything.”

MenEyePossibilityHairIntegrityDignityInfiniteWoodsInvisibleBlockDespiteWholenessUnlimitedLunaticInfinite PossibilitiesUnqualifiedPersonal DignityUncommitted
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.”

IfsWorldSaidBookWould BeTogetherLostNumbersSawsWrittenBalanceFoundationPatternsBeing TrueRanStayingSquaresTwistedFittingFitting Together
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age 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. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.”

ThinkingAgeSocialVirtueNiceRiskWallEasierSafeFunctionTwentiesOneselfSettlingUpsetPrisonerOrganismsHierarchyRest Of Your LifeMaking ChangesDisapproval
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. 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.”

ThinkingFeelsShouldRealityProcessFictionFantasyDangerousSafePrimariesInsanityWildernessMysticismRealisticDangerous ThingsArchetypeJungTerminology
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.”

IfsKnowsBelieveWellsMayLittlesDifferentHardDoneWholeReadingBitsNovelChangedNonsense
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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“Jungians such as Joseph Campbell have generalised such journeys into a set of archetypal events and images. Though they can be useful in criticism, I mistrust them as fatally reductive. “Ah, the Night Sea Voyage!” we cry, feeling that we have understood something important — but we’ve merely recognised it. Until we are actually on that voyage, we have understood nothing.”

ImportantFeelingsNightJourneySeaEventsCryUnderstoodCriticismVoyagesMistrustSea Voyage
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.”

WorldLooksChildrenTwoImportantIdeasRealSidesLinesGenerationsRocksWallAdultsBuiltMereSevenBoundariesClimbsOver ItGatesGeometryAmbiguous
Book:The Dispossessed
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“What's wrong with men?" Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, "I don't know, my dearie. I've thought on it. Often I've thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell." She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. "It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is. It's all him and nothing else, inside.”

IfsKnowsMenLongI CanSelfHardStrongVoiceSkinsFingersMeatNutsWetShellsBentMossWalnuts
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“If women had power, what would men be but women who can't bear children? And what would women be but men who can?" "Hah!" went Tenar; and presently, with some cunning, she said, "Haven't there been queens? Weren't they women of power?" "A queen's only a she-king," said Ged. She snorted. "I mean, men give her power. They let her use their power. But it isn't hers, is it? It isn't because she's a woman that she's powerful, but despite it.”

IfsMenGivingMeanChildrenSaidUsePowerfulHavensBearsKingsDespiteQueensCunningGedMean Man
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“What is a woman's power then?" she asked. "I don't think we know." "When has a woman power because she's a woman? With her children, I suppose. For a while..." "In her house, maybe." She looked around the kitchen. "But the doors are shut," she said, "the doors are locked." "Because you're valuable." "Oh yes. We're precious. So long as we're powerless.”

ThinkingKnowsChildrenLongSaidHouseDoorsValuableKitchenLockedPowerlessWomen Power
Book:Tehanu: The Fourth Book of Earthsea
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“Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her.”

LooksSoulHandsUniverseEnemyCuttingRocksStrangeCreaturesConcernPassionateLandscapeExtensionsLeafsLiving CreaturesRottingNature Love
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“In many college English courses the words “myth” and “symbol” are given a tremendous charge of significance. You just ain’t no good unless you can see a symbol hiding, like a scared gerbil, under every page. And in many creative writing course the little beasts multiply, the place swarms with them. What does this Mean? What does that Symbolize? What is the Underlying Mythos? Kids come lurching out of such courses with a brain full of gerbils. And they sit down and write a lot of empty pomposity, under the impression that that’s how Melville did it.”

WritingMeanLittlesDoeKidsCoursesGivenBrainCreativeCollegePagesEmptyDown AndScaredMythImpressionSymbolsBeastSignificanceHidingCreative WritingSwarmsMelvillePomposity
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.”

IfsWantHeartHandsArtistTeacherBabyStrikesCompanionGreat ArtistGood TeacherNew DirectionsHitchhikingMachetes
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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