... All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?"" I am myself. My body will not decay and die-""A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life."" I do not pay it! I can die and at that moment live again! Furthermore, I cannot be killed; I am immortal. Furthermore, I alone am myself forever!"" Who are you, then?"" The Immortal One."" Say your name."" The King."" Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!"" You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist."" You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. Furthermore, you sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw your world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

Almost everything carried to its logical extreme becomes either depressing or carcinogenic.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

A lot of people still maintain genre prejudice. I still meet matrons who tell me kindly that their children enjoyed my books but of course they never read them, and people who make sure I know they don’t read that space-ship stuff. No, no, they read Literature—realism. Like The Help, or Fifty Shades of Grey.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

A man who doesn’t detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government in earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

Am I supposed to feel so much awe and so on about the God king? After all, he's just a man ... He's about fifty years old, and he's bald. And I'll bet he has to cut his toenails too like any other man. I know perfectly well he's a god, too. But what I think is, he'll be much godlier after he's dead.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

And I did nothing, nothing but try to hide from the horror of dying." He stopped, for saying the truth aloud was unendurable. It was not shame that stopped him, but fear, the same fear. He knew now why this tranquil life in sea and sunlight on the rafts seemed to him like an after-life or a dream, unreal. It was because he knew in his heart that reality was empty: without life or warmth or color or sound: without meaning. There were no heights or depths. All this lovely play of form and light and color on the sea and in the eyes of men, was no more than that, a playing of illusions on the shallow void.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this--letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write. 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

And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change. Change is freedom, change is life

— Ursula K. Le Guin