The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle, #4)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

I talk about the gods; I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it.

I asked if these two psychopaths could not be cured. “Cured?” Goss said. “Would you cure a singer of his voice?”

“You don’t see yet, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?” “No—” “To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.”

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

I had my eyes on the stars, and didn’t watch the mud I walked in.”

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

Lacking sufficient cash to buy him with, I had to spend my reputation.

What is more arrogant than honesty?

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

It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darkness . . . how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male.