There was something lacking - in him, he thought, not in the place. He was not up to it. He was not strong enough to take what was so generously offered. He felt himself dry and arid, like a desert plant, in this beautiful oasis. Life on Anarres had sealed him, closed off his soul; the waters of life welled all around him, and yet he could not drink.
("The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia")
More Quotes from Ursula K. Le Guin:
A Woman is home caring for her children even if she can't. Trapped in this well-built trap, A Woman blames her mother for luring her into it, while ensuring that her own daughter never gets out she recoils from the idea of sisterhood and doesn't believe women have friends, because it probably means something unnatural, and anyhow, A Woman is afraid of women. She's a male construct, and she's afraid women will deconstruct her. She's afraid of everything, because she can't change. Thighs forever thin and shining hair and shining teeth and she's my Mom, too, all seven percent of her. And she never grows old.Ursula K. Le Guin
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
Ursula K. Le Guin
I expect it will turn out that sexual intercourse is possible between Gethenian double-sexed and Hainish-norm one-sexed human beings, though such intercourse will inevitably be sterile. It remains to be proved; Estraven and I proved nothing except perhaps a rather subtler point.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it had to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Everything gives way before the recurring torment and festivity of passion.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Life Quotes, Mind Quotes, Place Quotes, Soul Quotes, Thought & Thinking QuotesBased on Keywords: anarres, arid, welled
I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
Angela Davis
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
Francis Bacon
College was especially sweet because of the positive, hopeful atmosphere of a college campus.
Jerry Kramer