It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Fiction—and poetry and drama— cleanse the doors of perception.
Interpretation
Art forms like fiction, poetry, and drama help us see the world in new ways.
Ursula K. Le Guin suggests that creative works such as fiction, poetry, and drama serve to clear our minds and broaden our perspectives, allowing us to experience reality more fully. By engaging with these forms of art, we can have our perceptions enhanced and revitalized, leading to deeper understanding and appreciation of life.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of literature at a community event.
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
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.
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.
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
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.
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
There is no one more deserving of a place in Poets' Corner. Ted Hughes introduced a new kind of landscape into English poetry. The most compelling aspect of his work was his intimacy with nature.
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
For me, writing stories is one way of feeling connected to the universe and God.
To sing is to love and affirm, _x000D_ to fly and to soar, _x000D_ to coast into the hearts of the people _x000D_ who listen _x000D_ to tell them that life is to live, _x000D_ that love is there, _x000D_ that nothing is a promise, _x000D_ but that beauty exists, _x000D_ and must be hunted for and found.
I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.
We must be vigilant in sharing our stories and our truths as queer parents of color at every chance we get if we hope to see art imitate real life.
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