1,226 Quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil.

It seems you can only describe beauty by describing something else, the way you can only see the earliest star after sunset by not looking directly at it.

On the sea he wished to meet it, if meet it he must. He was not sure why this was, yet he had a terror of meeting the thing again on dry land. Out of the sea there rise storms and monsters, but no evil powers: evil is of earth. And there is no sea, no running of river or spring, in the dark land where once Ged had gone. Death is the dry place.

Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want, too. If we never find our experience described in poetry or stories, we assume that our experience is insignificant.

But a generation that knows only how to travel — can they teach a generation how to arrive?

Sairin bana siirinde okudugu Troya'nin dususu hikayesinde kralin kizi Cassandra olacaklari onceden goruyor ve Troyalıların buyuk atı sehre sokmalarını onlemeye calisiyor, ama onu kimse dinlemiyordu: Uzerrindeki lanetti bu, hakikati gorecek, bunu soyleyecek, ama onu kimse duymayacaktı. Erkeklerden ziyade kadinlarin uzerindeki bir lannetir bu. Erkekler hakikatin kendilerine ait olmasini, kendi kesifleri, kendi mulkleri olmasini ister.

A people that doesn't live at the center of the world, as defined and described by its poets and storytellers, is in a bad way. The center of the world is where you live fully, where you know how things are done, how things are done rightly, done well.

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.

You are all in jail. Each alone, solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your eyes – the walls, the walls!