It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
We need writers who know the difference between the production of a commodity and the practice of an art.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the distinction between creating art and producing commercial goods.
Ursula K. Le Guin highlights the importance of recognizing that true artistry is a practice driven by passion and creativity, rather than merely a transactional production of items for profit. She advocates for writers and artists who prioritize the integrity and emotional depth of their work, rather than succumbing to the pressures of commercialization.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the value of artistic integrity in contemporary literature.
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. 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
But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.
Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.
Photos are profound because they have such short lives. They are more like fingerprints, dead leaves, rain puddles, or the corpses of flies.
The way a small child might dream of visiting Disneyland, I dreamed of writing books. Never did I think my poems would become that.
I want it to sound like an orange.
The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.
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