Quote

Even in merely reading a fairytale, we must let go our daylight convictions and trust ourselves to be guided by dark figures, in silence and when we come back, it may be very hard to describe where we have been.

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
Hard
Figures
Must
Silence
Even
Trust
Convictions
Dark
Daylight
Reading
Guided
May
Describe
Back
Conviction
Come
Merely

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Literacy is so you can read the operating instructions.
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In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.
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My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.
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The bond between true lovers is as close as we come to what endures forever.
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When I'm writing I don't dream much it's like the dreaming gets used in the writing.
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Maybe when you meet the people you are supposed to meet you know it, without knowing it.
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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 futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.
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Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts - only in the truth.
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What is love of one's country is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing.
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There is a limited number of plots. There is no limit to the number of stories.
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The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well.
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This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
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The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarized in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review.
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Fake realism is the escapist literature of our time. And probably the ultimate escapist reading is that masterpiece of total unreality, the daily stock market report.
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If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin--the size of his mind, which included all that scientific curiosity and knowledge seeking, and the ability to put it all together. There is a genuine spirituality about Darwin's thinking.
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Elegance is a small price to pay for enlightenment, and I was glad to pay it.
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The backside of heroism is often rather sad women and servants know that. They know also that the heroism may be no less real for that. But achievement is smaller than men think. What is large is the sky, the earth, the sea, the soul.
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Crankish attacks on the freedom to read are common at present. When backed and coordinated by organized groups, they become sinister.
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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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The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.
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