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
kings trying dueling
That I was not dueling with the king, but trying to communicate with him, was itself an incommunicable fact.
writing trying showing-up
I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write.
mind trying goodness
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.
people trying fiction
Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.
justice trying demand
We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.
rivers land trying
What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.
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.