Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guinis 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, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth21 October 1929
CountryUnited States of America
writing thinking names
I don’t think ‘science fiction’ is a very good name for it, but it’s the name that we’ve got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own. But where I can get prickly and combative is, if I’m just called a sci-fi writer. I’m not. I’m a novelist and poet. Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.
names interesting political
Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principle moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories.
betrayal men names
It is hard, I found, to be called traitor. Strange how hard it is, for it's an easy name to call another man.
men names giving
Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping. Thus to Ged, who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given him that gift that only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakeable trust.
betrayal names voice
If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.
stories may helping
To see that your life is a story while you're in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well.
freedom responsibility absolute-freedom
Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.
basically breaks constructs custom male order power rule values women
To me the ''female principle'' is, or at least historically has been, basically anarchic. It values order without constraint, rule by custom not by force. It has been the male who enforces order, who constructs power structures, who makes, enforces, and breaks laws.
classes glad living strange teach telling
I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'
further hope reached since
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.
blueprints expect guess guidance novels offer
I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.
above achieve compassion imagination
It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope.
good journey matters
It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
cast
To light a candle is to cast a shadow.