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

The unknown," said Faxe's soft voice in the forest, "the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Why are my sons followed thus by darkness?' ...'Because they were born in the house of flesh, therefore death follows at their heels.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

I suspect that the distinction between a maternal and a paternal instinct is scarcely worth making; the parental instinct, the wish to protect, to further, is not a sex-linked characteristic…

Ursula K. Le Guin

The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard...

Ursula K. Le Guin

I expect it will turn out that sexual intercourse is possible between Gethenian double-sexed and Hainish-norm one-sexed human beings, though such intercourse will inevitably be sterile. It remains to be proved; Estraven and I proved nothing except pe...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Somewhere in the notes Estraven wrote during our trek across the Gobrin Ice he wonders why his companion is ashamed to cry. I could have told him even then that it was not shame so much as fear. Now I went on through the Sinoth Valley, through the ev...

Ursula K. Le Guin

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and : this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

Ursula K. Le Guin

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I think we shall have trouble learning how to lie, having for so long practiced the art of going round and round the truth without ever lying about it, or reaching it either.

Ursula K. Le Guin

He looked at me. His firm, broad face showed weight-loss in deep shadows under the cheekbones, his eyes were sunken and his mouth sorely chapped and cracked. God knows what I looked like, when he looked like that. He smiled. 'With luck we shall make ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend's voice arises: and how so real a love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where...

Ursula K. Le Guin

How does one hate a country, or love one?... I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to al...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Page 15, paperback version by Virago Press 1997: ... Let me ask you this, Mr Ai: do you know, by your own experience, what patriotism is?” ‘No’, I said, shaken by the force of the intese personality suddenly turning itself wholly upon me. ‘I ...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

Ursula K. Le Guin

How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but wh...

Ursula K. Le Guin

They did not use the sonic stunners but the foray gun, the ancient weapon that fires a set of metal fragments in a burst. They shot to kill him. He was dying when I got to him, sprawled and twisted away from his skis that stuck up out of the snow, hi...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it.

Ursula K. Le Guin

The light is the left hand of darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

While we read a novel, we are insane - bonkers.

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