Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Farthest Shore
You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man or anything. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: The gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Too many realists, following the principle that if it isn't ugly it can't be true, are as alert as fire wardens to make sure any glimpse of decency or gleam of hope is promptly extinguished.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Too many novelists, like too many filmmakers, cram their stories with ruthless violence gloatingly described, seeking to violate a shock threshold that grows ever higher, using cruelty to sell their books, to "thrill" readers who have been trained to think that nothing is interesting but "action," or to keep their demons at bay by loosing them on other people.
