Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

About Ursula K. Le Guin:

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Everything is old, here. We are old - the Masters." "You're not," Irian said. She thought him between thirty and forty[...] "But I came far. Miles can be years.

Ursula K. Le Guin

What is life without incompatible realities?

Ursula K. Le Guin

I know who I was, I can tell you who I may have been, but I am, now, only in this line of words I write.

Ursula K. Le Guin

To oppose something is to maintain it... You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.

Ursula K. Le Guin

What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one musn't make a virtue of it, or a profession...Insofar as I love life, I love [my country], but that sort of...

Ursula K. Le Guin

The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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 ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

You know there’s always prejudice in a revolutionary movement.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I think hard times are coming. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.

Ursula K. Le Guin

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.

Ursula K. Le Guin

We need writers who know the difference between the production of a commodity and the practice of an art.

Ursula K. Le Guin

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Other people's stories may become part of your own, the foundation of it, the ground it goes on.

Ursula K. Le Guin

To see a candle's light one must take it into a dark place.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and fu...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'. But a writer's job is ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

It could be a thousand things, distractions, worries; but very often I think what keeps a writer from finding the words is that she grasps at them too soon, hurries, grabs. She doesn’t wait for the wave to come in and break. She wants to write beca...

Ursula K. Le Guin

I use a whole lot of half-assed semicolons; there was one of them just now; that was a semicolon after 'semicolons,' and another one after 'now.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I write with all my heart

Ursula K. Le Guin

Author Bio

  • NameUrsula K. Le Guin
  • DescriptionAmerican writer known best for speculative fiction
  • AliasesUrsula Kroeber
  • BornOctober 21, 1929
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Screenwriter; Translator; Novelist; Poet
  • WorksEarthsea Series; Hainish Cycle
  • AwardsMargaret Edwards Award; Nebula Award; Prometheus Award - Hall Of Fame