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Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

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Famous Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

“By the time I wrote this book I needed to look at heroics from outside and underneath, from the point of view of the people who are not included. The ones who can’t do magic. The ones who don’t have shining staffs or swords. Women, kids, the poor, the old, the powerless. Unheroes, ordinary people—my people. I didn’t want to change Earthsea, but I needed to see what Earthsea looked like to us.”

ChildrenWomenFeminismHeroesHeroismElderlyHeroics
Book:Tehanu
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“But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear. I beg you to see what it is that we must save, and not to let the bigots and misogynists take it away from us again. Save what we won: our children. You who are young, before it's too late, save your children.”

ChildrenBigotryMisogynyAbortion Rights
Book:Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016
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“For fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom.”

KnowsChildrenCoursesChallengesFantasyAdultsDragonsUnnecessaryPhonyFactual
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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“No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.”

IfsMenWantWritingChildrenStillsMatterKidsDiesCoursesChanceSuccessfulTakenHe ManHigherTenSuicideListsNineCommitBelovedNervesInfluentialAnthology
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination.”

BelieveHumansChildrenI BelieveImaginationHuman BeingsGrowing UpGrowingAdultsMaturityFacultyMatureSurvivedHumaneAll The BestPower Of ImaginationOutgrowing
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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“I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. In most societies it determines one's expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners - almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages. Clothing. Even food. Women... women tend to eat less... It's extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the learned ones. Even where women participate equally with men in the society, they still after all do all the childbearing, and so most of the child-rearing.”

MenChildrenStillsImportantHardLife IsBornDifferencesActivityExpectationsEthicsFemaleImportant ThingsMalesDetermineFactorsMannersClothingsVocabularyOutlookInnateUsageChild RearingSemioticsChildbearing
Book:The Left Hand of Darkness
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“It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.”

ThinkingMenYearsChildrenEndsHandsTogetherNamesStarsWaterSecretSunTreeWindSourceSpringRootsDistanceShiningAriseCraftsCandleUnbornSyllablesWizardryUnborn Child
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.”

NeedsHumansWellsHeartChildrenWholeJoyMotherGrowsGrowing UpSuccessfulEconomicSourceNeededCapacityGuiltCompetitionAffectionDelightBurdenCooksUselessMakersScholarOwnershipHuntersNursingGood CookEconomic Competition
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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“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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“What children don't understand, and can't understand until they grow up some, is how much the whole fabric and process of human society depends on everybody agreeing to ignore, most of the time, the fact that all of us are, most of the time, inadequate, incompetent, pitiful, and, in fact, naked to our enemies. None of us really has very much in the way of spiritual, moral clothing. We dress ourselves in rags. And we agree to say nothing about it. To a very large extent, it is human charity that clothes us.”

WayHumansChildrenWholeFactsSpiritualGrowsProcessMoralEnemyGrowing UpHumilityDependsClothesDressesAgreeCharityNakedClothingsFabricInadequateHuman SocietyIncompetentRagsPitiful
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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“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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