It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
I think," Tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, "that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the idea of giving back to the world and acknowledging the potential of unfulfilled lives and choices.
In this quote, Tehanu expresses a profound realization about the cycle of life and the importance of our experiences, both lived and unfulfilled. The notion that one can 'breathe back' what they received suggests a desire for reciprocity with the world, highlighting the weight of choices not made and the potential impact on future lives. It emphasizes a deep connection to existence and the collective human experience, suggesting that even in death, there is an opportunity to contribute to the world by acknowledging and returning the essence of unfulfilled potential.
Themes
LifeBreathChoicesPotentialGiving Back
In practice
Example use cases
During a memorial speech reflecting on a loved one's life and impact.
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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