Frasi di Ursula K. Le Guin

p. 156

da The Fisherwoman's Daughter; citato in Oriana Palusci, Da un mondo all'altro: Ursula LeGuin e la storia delle donne, introduzione a Il giorno del perdono, p. 5

La mano sinistra delle tenebre

2004

p. 133

p. 133

p. 134

p. 159

p. 162

"A Woman's Liberation", p. 158; first published in Asimov's (1995)
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)

Bryn Mawr Commencement Address https://books.google.com/books?id=QK6TYg32CocC&pg=PA160 (1986), in Dancing at the Edge of the World (1997), p. 160

"A Man of the People", p. 140
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)
Contesto: “Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial,” Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole."

National Book Awards, November 2014 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/national-book-awards-ursula-le-guin
Contesto: I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river.... The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.

"The magician" by Maya Jaggi in The Guardian (17 December 2005) http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,,1669112,00.html
Contesto: Sometimes one’s very angry and preaches, but I know that to clinch a point is to close it. To leave the reader free to decide what your work means, that’s the real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.

Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)

Origine: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 18 “On the Ice” (p. 249)

“The Finder” (p. 59)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)

Origine: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 5

Origine: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 10 (Heather)

Origine: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 8 (p. 247)

Origine: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea"

Origine: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 2 (p. 55)

"The Creatures on My Mind" in Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (1996), p. 65

Origine: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 2 (Ogion)

Hainish Cycle, (1974)

And never under any circumstances, to squelch it, or sneer at it, or imply that it is childish, or unmanly, or untrue.
"Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" https://books.google.com/books?id=ksOjjuy3issC&pg=PA44, in The Language of the Night (1979), p. 44

Origine: The Lathe of Heaven (Smrtonosné sny)

The Language of the Night (1979)
Contesto: I have never found anywhere, in the domain of art, that you don't have to walk to. (There is quite an array of jets, buses and hacks which you can ride to Success; but that is a different destination.) It is a pretty wild country. There are, of course, roads. Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

The Language of the Night (1979)
Contesto: I have never found anywhere, in the domain of art, that you don't have to walk to. (There is quite an array of jets, buses and hacks which you can ride to Success; but that is a different destination.) It is a pretty wild country. There are, of course, roads. Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

Origine: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)

"Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction" (1976)
Contesto: True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. “You must change your life,” he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.

"A Man of the People", p. 140
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)
Contesto: “Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial,” Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole."

Origine: Hainish Cycle, The Telling (2000), Ch. 4, §3 (pp. 90–91)
Contesto: One of the historians of Darranda said: To learn a belief without belief is to sing a song without the tune.
A yielding, an obedience, a willingness to accept these notes as the right notes, this pattern as the true pattern, is the essential gesture of performance, translation, and understanding. The gesture need not be permanent, a lasting posture of the mind or heart, yet it is not false. It is more than the suspension of disbelief needed to watch a play, yet less than the conversion. It is a position, a posture in the dance.

Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)
Contesto: The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

"A Man of the People", p. 140
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)
Contesto: “Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial,” Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole."

National Book Awards, November 2014 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/national-book-awards-ursula-le-guin
Contesto: I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river.... The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.

Origine: Hainish Cycle, The Telling (2000), Ch. 4, §3 (pp. 90–91)
Contesto: One of the historians of Darranda said: To learn a belief without belief is to sing a song without the tune.
A yielding, an obedience, a willingness to accept these notes as the right notes, this pattern as the true pattern, is the essential gesture of performance, translation, and understanding. The gesture need not be permanent, a lasting posture of the mind or heart, yet it is not false. It is more than the suspension of disbelief needed to watch a play, yet less than the conversion. It is a position, a posture in the dance.

Origine: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)
Contesto: What you love, you will love. What you undertake you will complete. You are a fulfiller of hope; you are to be relied on. But seventeen years give little armor against despair... Consider, Arren. To refuse death is to refuse life.