The Birthday of the World and Other Stories

by Ursula K. Le Guin

You owe us the story.” That was a powerful phrase, among my people. “The untold story mothers the lie,” was the saying.

I learned that the story has no beginning, and no story has an end. That the story is all muddle, all middle.

She was sure he recognised her. But his stare was simply that of a child who saw strangers so seldom that for all he knew they all looked alike.

it was very hard to keep up the pretense, to prevent herself from saying what a woman would say to her sister. In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.

“All the grandmothers are rebels,” somebody had told him long ago, before the Uprising.

Hsing brought all the vigor and passion of her youth to her first grief.

Celestial Navigation: heaven-sailing. Out there was infinity. Through it there was one way.