Quotes from A Wizard of Earthsea

“It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“To light a candle is to cast a shadow...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Go to bed; tired is stupid.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he *must *do . . .”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“What good is power when you're too wise to use it?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves; it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping. Thus to Ged, who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given him that gift that only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakeable trust.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the “right” side and therefore will win. Right makes might.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“The wise needn't ask, the fool asks in vain.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“A rock is a good thing, too, you know. If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we'd lead a hard life here. Enjoy the illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Manhood is patience. Mastery is nine time patience”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Later, when Ged thought back upon that night, he knew that had none touched him when he lay thus spirit-lost, had none called him back in some way, he might have been lost for good. It was only the dumb instinctive wisdom of the beast who licks his hurt companion to comfort him, and yet in that wisdom Ged saw something akin to his own power, something that went as deep as wizardry. From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“That is between me and my shadow.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Yet a greater, unlearned skill he possessed, which was the art of kindness.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his brief broken life came within mind's reach and made a whole again. He knew once more, at last, after this long, bitter, waisted time, who he was and where he was. But where he must go in the years to come, that he could not see; and he feared to see it. ”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“Infinite are the arguments of mages,”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

“I was with you at the beginning of your journey. It is right that I should follow you to its end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from A Wizard of Earthsea

About the author

Popular quotes

“There were more recent markings as well-initials scratched over the pictographs, some with dates. people were always wanting to announce their existence to the world in a way that would surpass the ages, creating some sort of immortality. For all Karigan knew, the more ancient carvings were just another incarnation of such an urge.”
― Kristen Britain, quote from The High King's Tomb

“In your heart of hearts you don't want to see that happen."

"No. But sometimes I wish he'd learn a lesson and shape up."

"Sometimes that's all it takes. But sometimes the road is much longer. Zoe, you have to be patient. Have faith."

"How can I have faith in him when he's not trying?"

"Do you know he's not trying?"

"He's not changing, is he?"

"Zoe." He stepped closer and though he didn't touch me, his nearness swiped away my anger. "Change isn't as easy as snapping your finger."

"It's easy if you just decide to do something. Come on Matthias, everybody's got their turning point, their rock bottom or whatever you want to call it."

"And for everyone it's different. If we all learned the lesson the first time around the track, there'd be no need for a stadium, for coaches, for cheerleaders, for those people who maintain the field so we can pick ourselves up and try again.”
― Jennifer Laurens, quote from Heavenly

“I offered to pass along information about NEHSA to Heidi so she can let her patients know about it. I don’t have any scientific or clinical data to back this up, but I think snow-boarding is the most effective rehabilitative tool I’ve experienced. It forces me to focus on my abilities and not my disability, to overcome huge obstacles, both physical and psychological, to stay up on that board and get down the mountain in one piece. And each time I get down the mountain in one piece, I gain a real confidence and sense of independence I haven’t felt anywhere else since the accident, a sense of true well-being that stays with me well beyond the weekend. And whether snowboarding with NEHSA has a measurable and lasting therapeutic effect for people like me or not, it’s a lot more fun than drawing cats and picking red balls up off a tray”
― Lisa Genova, quote from Left Neglected

“Happy people got something to fight for.”
― LaVyrle Spencer, quote from Morning Glory

“I wanted to be the one to take you tonight. Know that I’ll be thinking of only you. “What a bunch of bull-sh--”
― Rachel Higginson, quote from Reckless Magic

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.