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Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

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Famous Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

“Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.”

TwoDiesGrowsLimitsCapitalismMythOddsEcologyImperativesEcologicalInterdependenceCoexist
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Reading is performance. The reader--the child under the blanket with a flashlight, the woman at the kitchen table, the man at the library desk--performs the work. The performance is silent. The readers hear the sounds of the words and the beat of the sentences only in their inner ear. Silent drummers on noiseless drums. An amazing performance in an amazing theater.”

MenChildrenReadingSoundHe ManReaderBeatsPerformancesEarsTheaterTablesSilentLibrarySentencesKitchenDesksBlanketDrummerKitchen TableFlashlights
Book:The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
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“What she needs, at least one thing she needs, is companionship. After all why should she eat? Who needs her to be alive? What we call psychosis is sometimes simply realism. But human beings can't live on realism alone.”

NeedsShouldHumansSometimesHuman BeingsAliveOne ThingRealismCompanionshipPsychosis
Book:The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
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“I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion.”

StillsBigsLightStrongGrowsVoiceWaterSilenceSunTreeSpringSingingBirdMouthsSittingMovedHillsAweMassivePoolVery StrongRootedCavesOaksMistyNear And Far
Book:Lavinia
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“If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong -- not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck -- if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival.”

IfsThinkingFeelsHumansChildrenStepsBreakBirthMoralitySurvivalEthicsNecksFeminineRealisticUnwantedYoke
Book:Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
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“The pornography of violence of course far exceeds, in volume and general acceptance, sexual pornography, in this Puritan land of ours. Exploiting the apocalypse, selling the holocaust, is a pornography. For the ultimate selling job on ultimate violence one must read those works of fiction issued by our government as manuals of civil defense, in which you learn that there's nothing to be afraid of if you've stockpiled lots of dried fruit.”

IfsGovernmentJobsCoursesBusinessFictionViolenceLandAcceptanceUltimateFruitDefenseSellingFinanceHolocaustVolumeApocalypsePornographyExceedManualsPuritan
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“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. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat... where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.”

WritingArtIdeasDiesFeltAnswersSeaSourceOriginalsShiningMetaphorBoatMysteriousSwimSwingsTranslateTranslationsSandwichesArt Of WritingDeep Sea
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“To me the female principle is, or at least historically has been, basically anarchic. It values order without constraint, rule by custom not by force. It has been the male who enforces order, who constructs power structures, who makes, enforces, and breaks laws.”

Has BeensLawValuesOrderForceWomenPrinciplesBreakFemaleStructureMalesCustomsConstructsConstraints
Book:Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
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“Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing -- instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.”

WorldHumansLooksSoulCountryLightEyeEarthLyingGrowsDarkHuman BeingsSkyBlessingRootsOur CountryLook UpSpyHuman SoulWeaponry
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Meeting writers is always so disappointing. I got over wanting to meet live writers quite a long time ago. There is this terrific book that has changed your life, and then you meet the author, and he has shifty eyes and funny shoes and he won't talk about anything except the injustice of the United States income tax structure toward people with fluctuating income, or how to breed Black Angus cows, or something.”

PeopleWritingLongBookStatesEyeBlackUnitedUnited StatesChangedTaxesLong TimeStructureMeetingsInjusticeShoesIncomeCowsTerrificLong Time AgoDisappointingIncome Tax
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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