It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his brief broken life came within mind's reach and made a whole again. He knew once more, at last, after this long, bitter, waisted time, who he was and where he was. But where he must go in the years to come, that he could not see; and he feared to see it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on a moment of self-discovery and contemplation of one's past and uncertain future.
In this poignant reflection, the speaker, now seventeen, revisits the memories of his tumultuous life, experiencing a profound clarity about his identity and existence. Despite the regeneration of his past experiences into a cohesive understanding, he struggles with the unknown journey ahead, revealing a deep fear of the future and the challenges it might bring.
Themes
Self-DiscoveryIdentityFearFutureMemories
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech to reflect on the past and look towards the future.
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
All quotes →In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
When he found that the administrators were upset, he laughed. “Do they expect students not to be anarchists?” he said. “What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Similar quotes
The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voices of friends and say to oneself, The work is done.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.
Sinclair LewisRead
By the time I wrote my memoir, 'Men We Reaped,' I had been running from writing it for a long time. When the events in the book were happening, I knew I'd probably write about them one day. I didn't want to. I'd studied fiction, and I was committed to establishing myself as a fiction writer first.
Jesmyn WardRead
I am a vegetarian because I realized that even little chickens suffer pain and fear, experience a range of feelings and emotions, and are as intelligent as mammals, including dogs, cats, and even some primates.
Paul MccartneyRead
It’s just that I feel so sad these wonderful nights. I sort of feel they’re never coming again, and I’m not really getting all I could out of them.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
One can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.
Lucy Maud MontgomeryRead