Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction writer extraordinaire and tough-minded feminist, passed away on Monday at age 88, according to the New York Times. Le Guin’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world.
Many of Le Guin’s books have been in print for nearly 50 years, including the extremely popular The Left Hand of Darkness, which takes place on a planet where people are neither male nor female, something she referred to as a “thought experiment” that explored the nature of human societies — definitely a recommended read.
In honor of legacy she leaves behind, here are seven awesome (and applicable) quotes from the legend herself.
“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
“Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
“Compare the torrent and the glacier. Both get where they are going.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
“Go to bed; tired is stupid.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
“It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Top photo, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, Arwen Curry.
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