Quote

This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula K. Le Guin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1929
Born: October 21
Died: 2018
Died: January 22
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Berkeley
California
Ursula Kroeber
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Stars
Abyss
Word
Thou
Art
Safety
Place
Dance
Ends
Darkness
Must
Terrible
Always
Silence
Danced
Heard
Hollow

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I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.
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The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.
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Besides, when you say you're a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it's kind of irresistible.
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No man, no power, can bind the action of wizardry or still the words of power. For they are the very words of Making, and one who could silence them could unmake the world.
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It is not altogether a bad thing to have criminal ancestors. An arsonist grandfather may bequeath one a nose for smelling smoke.
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But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.
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What is more arrogant than honesty?
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The historic function of a Senator from Oregon is to drive all the other Senators mad.
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The machine conceals the machinations.
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There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
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If you're a fiction writer, though, I can tell you how to let people talk through you. Listen. Just be quiet, and listen. Let the character talk. Don't censor, don't control. Listen, and write.
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When in the Land of Property think like a propertarian. Dress like one, eat like one, act like one, be one.
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Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon.
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Everything gives way before the recurring torment and festivity of passion.
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The more defensive a society, the more conformist.
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You know, I don't think a lot about why one book connects with its readers and another doesn't. Probably because I don't want to start thinking, Am I popular? I spent way too much time thinking about that in high school.
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If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself
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There is no kingdom like the forests.
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And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change. Change is freedom, change is life
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The borderline between prose and poetry is one of those fog-shrouded literary minefields where the wary explorer gets blown to bits before ever seeing anything clearly. It is full of barbed wire and the stumps of dead opinions.
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