I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman'… - Ursula K. Le Guin

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Engraved portrait of Ursula K. Le Guin, facing right

I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.

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About Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin (21 October 1929 – 22 January 2018) was an American writer, known mostly for her work in science fiction and fantasy. She received the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, and was made a Grandmaster of Science Fiction in 2003.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Marian Wood Kolisch, Oregon State University Restored by Adam Cuerden (CC BY-SA)

Also Known As

Birth Name: Ursula Kroeber
Alternative Names: Ursula Kroeber Le Guin Ursula Le Guin

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Shorter versions of this quote

What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the greatest revolution of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens.

Additional quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin

They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

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On the sea he wished to meet it, if meet it he must. He was not sure why this was, yet he had a terror of meeting the thing again on dry land. Out of the sea there rise storms and monsters, but no evil powers: evil is of earth. And there is no sea, no running of river or spring, in the dark land where once Ged had gone. Death is the dry place.

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