The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.
A rock is a good thing, too, you know. If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we’d lead a hard life here. Enjoy the illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.
What are we so afraid of? Why don’t we let ‘em tell us we’re afraid? What is it they’re afraid of?” She picked up the stocking she had been darning, turned it in her hands, was silent awhile; finally she said, “What are they afraid of us for?
How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.
I tried to speak insipidly, yet everything I said seemed to take on a double meaning.
True voyage is return.
What is evil?” asked the younger man. The round web, with its black center, seemed to watch them both. “A web we men weave.” Ged answered.
The novelist’s business is lying.
Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.
We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.
Which is better off, a lizard basking in the sun or a philosopher?
Not all roads that lead down lead up as well.
Almost everything carried to its logical extreme becomes either depressing or carcinogenic.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow, including good-natured men.
When all ways are lost the way is clear.
If you can’t lick’em, join’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else.
The life of every man is in the Center of Time, for all were seen in the seeing of Meshe, and are in his eye. We are the pupils of his Eye... Our doing is his Seeing: our being is his Knowing.
The social function of narrative is not limited to ‘primitive’ people sitting around the fire telling each other where Fire came from and why they’re sitting around it.
Like all walls it was ambiguous, two faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side you were on.
That is between me and my shadow.