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Voices

by Ursula K. Le Guin · 2006

Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools and temples. But that was long ago, before the Alds came. The Alds believe demons hide in words, and so they ban reading and writing, acts now punishable by… more

11 quotes ★ 3.98 (6,382) Fantasy

Quotes from the Book

I always wondered why the makers leave housekeeping and cooking out of their tales. Isn't it what all the great wars and battles are fought for -- so that at day's end a family may eat together in a peaceful house?
68
Having one king, one god, one belief, they can act single-mindedly.
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I wonder if men find it easier than women do to consider people not as bodies, as lives, but as numbers, figures, toys of the mind to be pushed about a battleground of the mind. This disembodiment gives pleasure, exciting them and freeing them to act for the sake of acting, for the sake of manipulating the figures, the game pieces. Love of country, or honor, or freedom, then, may be names they give that pleasure to justify it to the gods and to the people who suffer and kill and die in the game. So those words—love, honor, freedom—are degraded from their true sense. Then people may come to hold them in contempt as meaningless, and poets must struggle to give them back their truth.
6
The first thing I can remember clearly is writing the way into the secret room.
5
Heathen" is merely a word for somebody who knows a different sacredness than you know
3
This is part of what I meant about housework. If it isn't important, what is? If it isn't done honorably, where is honor? Ista
3
generation learns that knowledge is punished and safety lies in ignorance. The next generation doesn't know they're ignorant, because they don't know what knowledge was.
2
Bulmak için olmak lazım,
Korku sessizliği doğurur, sonra sessizlik korkuyu doğurur,
The nail's hit once, the hammer a thousand times.
to read the oracle is to bring rational thought to an impenetrable mystery

About Ursula K. Le Guin

We have collected 635 quotes from 30 books by Ursula K. Le Guin on BookQuoters.

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About the book

Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools and temples. But that was long ago, before the Alds came. The Alds believe demons hide in words, and so they ban reading and writing, acts now punishable by death. What few books have survived are hidden in the Waylord's House for safekeeping, in the care of the Waylord, crippled by years of torture, and the daughter of his heart, Memer.

And now times are changing. The Uplands poet Orrec Caspro and his wife Gry have arrived, and in his voice is a clarion call, awakening a conquered people.

The second book of the Annals of the Western Shore, Voices is a haunting and gripping coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence, intolerance and magic.

Book details

First published
2006
Genre
Fantasy
Goodreads rating
3.98 (6k ratings)

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