WIST Quotations

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- “Dreams Must Explain Themselves” (1973)

Dave — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:24:58 +0000

Sure it’s simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up. All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don’t be too scary and be sure there’s a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it. Write down. Right on. If you do all that you might even write Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and make twenty million dollars and have every adult in America reading your book.
But you won’t have every kid in America reading your book. They will look at it, with their clear, cold, beady little eyes, and they will put it down, and they will go away. Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them) but they are not like adults; they have not yet learned to eat plastic.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
“Dreams Must Explain Themselves” (1973)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- “Escape Routes,” Galaxy (Dec 1974)

Dave — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 19:00:10 +0000

The oldest argument against SF is both the shallowest and the profoundest: the assertion that SF, like all fantasy, is escapist. […] If it’s worth answering, the best answer is given by Tolkien, author, critic, and scholar. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the know-nothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
“Escape Routes,” Galaxy (Dec 1974)

Reprinted in The Language of the Night (1979).

Though Le Guin makes it clear it's a paraphrase, the main body of this passage is often misrepresented as an actual quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien (and with an exclamation point on the final sentence). It was, instead, inspired by Tolkien's comments on escapism in "On Fairy-Stories" (1939).

More discussion on this quotation: Not a Tolkien quote: "Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory" - thetolkienist.com

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- “The Child and the Shadow,” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Apr 1975)

Dave — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:09:55 +0000

The problem of drugs, of divorce, of race prejudice, of unmarried pregnancy, and so on — as if evil were a problem, something that an be solved, that has an answer, like a problem in fifth grade arithmetic. If you want the answer, you just look in the back of the book. That is escapism, that posing evil as a “problem,” instead of what it is: all the pain and suffering and waste and loss and injustice we will meet our loves long, and must face and cope with over and over and over, and admit, and live with, in order to live human lives at all.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
“The Child and the Shadow,” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Apr 1975)
(Source)

On the difficulty of "realistic fiction" for children to teach morality. First delivered as a speech; later reprinted in The Language of the Night (1979).

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- A Wizard of Earthsea, ch. 3 (1968)

Dave — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 17:21:01 +0000

You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
A Wizard of Earthsea, ch. 3 (1968)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, ch. 5 (1974)

Dave — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:01:55 +0000

Coercion is the least efficient means of obtaining order.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, ch. 5 (1974)
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Farthest Shore, “Lorbanery” [Sparrowhawk] (1972)

Dave — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 06:30:35 +0000

Strange roads have strange guides.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Farthest Shore, “Lorbanery” [Sparrowhawk] (1972)
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Lathe of Heaven

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Lathe of Heaven

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Lathe of Heaven, ch. 9 (1971)

Dave — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:03:09 +0000

The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained, the vaster the appetite for more.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Lathe of Heaven, ch. 9 (1971)
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 8 (1969)

Dave — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:36:17 +0000

Primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of these two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 8 (1969)
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 15 (1969)

Dave — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 23:03:20 +0000

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 15 (1969)
(Source)

More info: It Is Good To Have an End To Journey Towards; But It Is the Journey That Matters, in the End – Quote Investigator.

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 3 (1969)

Dave — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:56:43 +0000

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 3 (1969)
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- Interview (2005-12-17), “The Magician,” by Maya Jaggi, The Guardian

Dave — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:49:36 +0000

If you cannot or will not imagine the results of your actions, there’s no way you can act morally or responsibly. Little kids can’t do it; babies are morally monsters—completely greedy. Their imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
Interview (2005-12-17), “The Magician,” by Maya Jaggi, The Guardian
(Source)

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- Speech, accepting the National Book Foundation Medal (19 Nov 2014)

Dave — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:51:02 +0000

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
Speech, accepting the National Book Foundation Medal (19 Nov 2014)
(Source)

On receiving the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 65th National Book Awards. Video of the speech.

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- Story (1995-11), “Ether, OR,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 19

Dave — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 23:49:23 +0000

I feel like I was walking across Nevada, like the pioneers, carrying a lot of stuff I need, but as I go along I have to keep dropping off things. I had a piano once but it got swamped at a crossing of the Platte. I had a good frypan but it got too heavy and I left it in the Rockies. I had a couple ovaries but they wore out around the time we were in the Carson Sink. I had a good memory but pieces of it keep dropping off, have to leave them scattered around in the sage brush, on the sand hills.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
Story (1995-11), “Ether, OR,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 19
(Source)

Collected in Hogeland and Brawn (eds.), The Aunt Lute Anthology of US Women Writers, Vol. 2 (2008).

Le Guin, Ursula K. -- Story (1995-11), “Ether, OR,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 19

Dave — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 21:51:53 +0000

It’s like all the time I was working keeping house and raising the kids and making love and earning our keep I thought there was going to come a time or there would be some place where all of it came together. Like it was words I was saying, all my life, all the kinds of work, just a word here and a word there, but finally all the words would make a sentence, and I could read the sentence. I would have made my soul and know what it was for. But I have made my soul and I don’t know what to do with it. Who wants it?

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
Story (1995-11), “Ether, OR,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 19
(Source)

Collected in the Aunt Lute Anthology of U.S. Women Writers, Vol. 2 (2008).