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
book self-understanding discovery
We read books to find out who we are.
self law ideas
Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.
men what-matters self
Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other--outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.
writing thinking self
I think there is no way to write about being alone. To write is to tell something to somebody to communicate to others. . . . Solitude is noncommunication, the absence of others, the presence of a self sufficient to itself.
self self-destruction destruction
Great self-destruction follows upon unfounded fear.
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.