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
average want orthodoxy
Honestly, orthodoxy concerns me about as much as it concerns your average jackrabbit. I only follow rules that take me where I want to go. If there aren't any rules, I make up my own (and follow them strictly).
thinking want poet
When you work in form, be it a sonnet or villanelle or whatever, the form is there and you have to fill it. And you have to find how to make that form say what you want to say. But what you find, always--I think any poet who's worked in form will agree with me--is that the form leads you to what you want to say.
people want
When people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always WAS a writer.
want ged clarity
She obeys me, but only because she wants to. It's the only justification for obedience, Ged observed.
appreciation men want
A man wants his virility regarded. A woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. [Here] one is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.
squares stories want
I don't want to be a propagandist, no matter how good the cause. I want to tell stories. It's just that the stories have to square with my consciousness as a woman and my conscience as a human being.
sea want doe
If you want to know all about the sea ... and ask the sea itself, what does it say? Grumble grumble swish swish. It is too busy being itself to know anything about itself.
writing stories want
I have no control over my writing. I have lots of good intentions, but no control. There's a story that wants to be told.
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.