# Quote — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Telling

> One of the historians of Darranda said: To learn a belief without belief is to sing a song without the tune.
>
> A yielding, an obedience, a willingness to accept these notes as the right notes, this pattern as the true pattern, is the essential gesture of performance, translation, and understanding. The gesture need not be permanent, a lasting posture of the mind or heart, yet it is not false. It is more than the suspension of disbelief needed to watch a play, yet less than the conversion. It is a position, a posture in the dance.

- Author: [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md)
- Book: [The Telling](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-telling.md)
- Page: 90
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#The_Telling_(2000)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-telling/one-of-the

## More from this book

> She had come to Aka to learn how to sing this world's tune, to dance its dance; and at last, she thought, away from the city's endless noise, she was beginning to hear the music and to learn how to move to it.

p. 91 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-telling/she-had-come.md)

> She was not so naive as to think there was any necessary relation between religion and morality, or that if there was a relation it was likely to be a benevolent one.

p. 109 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-telling/she-was-not.md)

> Most civilisations, perhaps, look shinier in general terms and from several light-years away.

p. 32 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-telling/most-civilisations-perhaps.md)