# Quote — Ursula K. Le Guin, Orsinian Tales

> He had been a handsome man, when they married, fourteen years ago. A handsome, happy man, proud and kind, very good at his work. There had been a splendor to him, a wholeness.
>
> That was gone. There was no more room in the world for whole people, they took up too much space. What she had done to him was only a part of the general program for cutting him and people like him down to size, for chopping and paring and breaking up, so that in the texture of life nothing large, nothing hard, nothing grand should remain.

- Author: [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md)
- Book: [Orsinian Tales](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/orsinian-tales.md)
- Page: 176
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#Orsinian_Tales_(1976)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/orsinian-tales/he-had-been

## More from this book

> And fourteen—fourteen is such a fearful age, when you find out so fast what you’re capable of being, but also what a toll the world expects.

p. 204 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/orsinian-tales/and-fourteen-fourteen-is-such.md)

> Josef liked to read books, not pack them.

p. 203 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/orsinian-tales/josef-liked-to-read.md)

> He had waked her; he had given her what she lacked, and what few men could have given her: the sense of peril, which is the root of love.

p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/orsinian-tales/he-had-waked.md)