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 don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Le Guin distinguishes between moral instruction and storytelling, emphasizing her role as a novelist over that of a preacher.
In this quote, Ursula K. Le Guin articulates her belief that literature should not serve merely as a medium for moral preaching or didactic messages, but rather as a creative form that explores the complexities of human experience through fiction. By asserting that she writes novels instead of tracts, Le Guin highlights the importance of storytelling in illuminating truths about life and humanity, showcasing her perspective on the role of a writer as an artist rather than a moral authority.
Themes
WritingFictionNovelsStorytellingCreativityArt
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a literary festival to emphasize the importance of creative expression in literature.
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
All quotes βIn 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. βDo they expect students not to be anarchists?β he said. βWhat else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Similar quotes
If you're writing a song, you have to write something that can be understood serially. When you're reading a poem that's written for the page, your eye can skip up and down. You can see the thing whole. But you're not going to see the thing whole in the song. You're going to hear it in series, and you can't skip back.
James FentonRead
When you rehearse a play, you spend four weeks with one goal in mind - to wean the actor away from you. You want the actor to become completely independent and to understand all the emotional and psychological moves within the character.
Sydney PollackRead
It seems to me that it had no other rationale than to show that we are not simply the country of entertainers, but also that of engineers and builders called from across the world to build bridges, viaducts, stations and major monuments of modern industry, the Eiffel Tower deserves to be treated with consideration.
Gustave EiffelRead
My ex-wife was trying to be nice once, so she took me to a concert in Los Angeles. I went with her to Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was playing. When the show started, the spotlight was sharp on this one man (Andres Segovia) and he had sombrero on and his guitar propped up like this and, oh man ... he was a master ! - I really heard it. That one guitar sounded like a whole orchestra to me.
B. B. KingRead
Beautiful forms and compositions are not made by chance, nor can they ever, in any material, be made at small expense. A composition for cheapness and not excellence of workmanship is the most frequent and certain cause of the rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufacturers.
Josiah WedgwoodRead
No one can be an artist without a rich inner life.
Daniel BarenboimRead