Quotessence
Home / Books / The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction

The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction

Book by Ursula K. Le Guin · 5 quotes · Ifs, Children, Believe

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsChildrenBelieveFantasyImaginationMayRealBookFeelsKnowsWritingAdultsArtDifferentDoneFreedomGrowing UpHas BeensI BelieveMatter

The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction Quotes

“If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself - as men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation - you may hate it or deify it; but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality and its human reality. You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship. And thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality.”

IfsMenHumansKindMayPersonsMadeDifferentDoneRealitySpiritualHateNationsClassCasesRespectEqualityDenyMade ItDeniedAffinityPower Relationships
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingInspirationalFeelsMayBookRealUnderstandingEssentialsDiscoveryGuidesSelf DiscoveryWho We AreFinding YourselfImaginaryKnow YourselfThyselfKnow ThyselfSelf UnderstandingDiscovering YourselfDiscovering The World
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
Create image

“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
Create image

“True myths may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blonde Hero-really look-and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. "You must change your life," he said. When the true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.”

LifeYearsLooksMaySaidRealReasonJoyTurnsReligiousConsciousnessMysteryPoetSourceHeroMessagesIntellectualYears AgoMythDestroyedArtisticFakeFiftySpokesEthicalInquirySpeculationStatuesRenewalChanging Your LifeApolloBlonde
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
Create image