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Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

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Famous Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

“Verbal imagery (such as a simile or a description of a place or an event) is more physical, more bodily, than thinking or feeling, but less physical, more internal, than the actual sounds of the words. Imagery takes place in "the imagination," which I take to be the meeting place of the thinking mind with the sensing body. What is imagined isn't physically real, but it feels as if it were: the reader sees or hears or feels what goes on in the story, is drawn into it, exists in it, among its images, in the imagination (the reader's? the writer's?) while reading.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Art is craft: all art is always and essentially a work of craft: but in the true work of art, before the craft and after it, is some essential durable core of being, which is what the craft works on, and shows, and sets free. The statue in the stone. How does the artist find that, see it, before it's visible? That is a real question.”

DoeArtRealShowsArtistEssentialsArt IsStonesCoreCraftsVisibleWorks Of ArtStatuesReal Questions
Book:The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
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“Writers are egotists. All artists are. They can’t be altruists and get their work done. And writers love to whine about the Solitude of the Author’s Life, and lock themselves into cork-lined rooms or droop around in bars in order to whine better. But although most writing is done in solitude, I believe that it is done, like all the arts, for an audience. That is to say, with an audience. All the arts are performance arts, only some of them are sneakier about it than others.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and Entertainment is modest but jolly and popular, is neo-Victorian idiocy at its worst.”

ArtWorstArt IsEntertainmentHeavyDullEntertainingModestSolemnVictorianJollyIdiocy
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”

KnowsWayWritingWellsMeanPersonsArtSoulStoriesUseCarePoetReaderSkillsStrongerDelightDeeperWho CaresBrighterLife LearningUsing Words
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

HumansArtSeemsHuman BeingsChangedDivineKingsCapitalismResistanceHuman PowerDivine RightDivine Right Of Kings
Book:Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a WriterÕs Week
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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.”

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Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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