Ursula K. Le Guin

To be an atheist is to maintain God. His existence or his nonexistence, it amounts to much the same, on the plane of proof. Thus proof is a word not often used among the Handdarata, who have chosen not to treat God as a fact, subject either to proof or to belief: and they have broken the circle, and go free.

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

Elegance is a small price to pay for enlightenment, and I was glad to pay it.

“The mission I am on overrides all personal debts and loyalties.”

“If so,” said the stranger with fierce certainty, “it is an immoral mission.”

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

This, at least, is the accepted explanation, though like most economic explanations it seems, under certain lights, to omit the main point.

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

To oppose something is to maintain it.

They say here “all roads lead to Mishnory.” To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.

The experience was disagreeable. I began to feel like an atheist praying.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.