The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #6)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.

Each took for granted certain relationships that the other could not even see. For instance, this curious matter of superiority, of relative height, was important to the Urrasti; they often used the word “higher” as a synonym for “better” in their writings, where an Anarresti would use “more central.”

It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.

The Settlers of Anarres had turned their backs on the Old World and its past, opted for the future only. But as surely as the future becomes the past, the past becomes the future. To deny is not to achieve.

The explorer who will not come back or send back his ships to tell his tale is not an explorer, only an adventurer, and his sons are born in exile.

It is hard, however, for people who have never paid money for anything to understand the psychology of cost, the argument of the marketplace.