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

by Ursula K. Le Guin

“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.”

How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession. . . . Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate.

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