6
" Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and convention subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had any self-respect they'd be writing memoir, but they're too lazy to fact-check. Of course I never read Re-Fi. But the kids keep bringing home these garish realistic novels and talking about them, so I know that it's an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on one species, full of worn-out cliches and predictable situations--the quest for the father, mother-bashing, obsessive male lust, dysfunctional suburban families, etc., etc. All it's good for is being made into mass-market movies. Given its old-fashioned means and limited subject matter, realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000–2016, with A Journal of a Writer's Week
10
" While I’m reading a story I want to be able to suspend disbelief; the more questions of authorial reliability force themselves on me, the weaker the hold of the narrative. This is a naïve approach to fiction, granted, but a tough one, since intellect, cleverness, charm, wit, tact, even fact cannot conceal incredibility. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000–2016, with A Journal of a Writer's Week
14
" I hold it self-evident that so long as we live in a man’s world, as we still do, women have a right to create enclaves of learning or work where, instead of obeying or imitating what men do and want, women can shape what they do, how they do it, and why they do it, in their own way and on their own terms. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000–2016, with A Journal of a Writer's Week
19
" But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear. I beg you to see what it is that we must save, and not to let the bigots and misogynists take it away from us again. Save what we won: our children. You who are young, before it's too late, save your children. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000–2016, with A Journal of a Writer's Week
Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000–2016, with A Journal of a Writer's Week