It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That's enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on that paper.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A writer's essential tools are simple, yet the responsibility for their work rests solely on them.
Ursula K. Le Guin emphasizes the fundamental simplicity of writing; all one needs is a pencil and paper. However, she highlights the immense responsibility that comes with being a writer, as the individual must acknowledge their autonomy and accountability for the words they produce, shaping their own narrative and artistic expression.
Themes
WritingResponsibilityCreativityExpressionAccountability
In practice
Example use cases
During a writer's workshop, to inspire budding authors to take ownership of their work.
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
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