Ursula K. Le Guin, on being an introvert and a writer:

Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts.

Extroverts rule.

This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts.

We are being taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'.

But a writer's job is ingoing.

- Ursula K. Le Guin.

Born on this day – Ursula K. Le Guin:

Ursula K. Le Guin

Writer

October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018

Credits:

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968); The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore (1972); Tehanu (1990); The Other Wind (2001); The Daughter of Odren (2014); Tales from Earthsea (2001); Dragonfly (2001); The Finder (2001); The Bones of the Earth (2001); Earthsea Revisioned (1993); Catwings (1988); Catwings Return (1989); Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings (1994); Jane on Her Own (1999); Cat Dreams (2009); Tales of the Catwings (1996); More Tales of the Catwings (2000); Rocannon's World (1966); Planet of Exile (1966); City of Illusions (1967); The Left Hand of Darkness (1969); The Word for World is Forest (1972); The Dispossessed (1974); Four Ways to Forgiveness (1994); The Telling (2000); The Adventure of Cobbler's Rune (1982); Solomon Leviathan's Nine-Hundred and Thirty-First Trip Around the World (1983); Gifts (2004); Voices (2006); Powers (2007); Orsinian Tales (1976); Malafrena (1979); The Unreal and the Real, Vol. 1: Where on Earth (2012); The Unreal and the Real, Vol. 2: Outer Space, Inner Lands (2012); April in Paris (1962); The Masters (1963); The Word of Unbinding (1964); Things (1970); The Good Trip (1970); A Trip to the Head (1970); The Stars Below (1974); Direction of the Road (2017); Darkness Box (2017); The Day Before the Revolution (2017); Semley's Necklace (2017); The Rule of Names (2017); Winter's King (2017); The Lathe of Heaven (1971); Very Far Away from Anywhere Else (aka A Very Long Way from Anywhere Else) (1976); The Eye of the Heron (1978); The Beginning Place (aka Threshold) (1980); Always Coming Home (1985); Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand (1991); Changing Planes (2003); Lavinia (2008); Nine Lives (1968); The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973); The Field of Vision (1973); The Water is Wide (1976); Leese Webster (1979); Gwilan's Harp (1981); Solomon Leviathan's 931st Trip Around the World (1983); The Visionary: The Life Story of Flicker of the Serpentine of Telina-Na (1984); Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight (1987); Unchosen Love (Amazing Stories #591) (1994); The Matter of Seggri (in Crank!) (1994); Forgiveness Day (1994); Solitude (in F&SF) (1994); A Man of the People (in Asimov's) (1995); A Woman’s Liberation (in Asimov's) (1995); Ether OR (1995); Mountain Ways (in Asimov's) (1996); The Wild Girls (2011); Dangerous People (2019); The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 1 (1975); Wild Angels (1975); The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 2 (1978); Hard Words and Other Poems (1981); The Compass Rose (1982); In the Red Zone (1983); Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences (1987); Wild Oats and Fireweed (1988); Blue Moon Over Thurman Street (1994); A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994); Going Out with Peacocks and Other Poems (1994); Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (1996); Sixty Odd (1999); The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (2002); Science Fiction Stories (2002); Incredible Good Fortune (2006); Walking in Cornwall (2008); Finding My Elegy (2012); Late in the Day: Poems, 2010-2014 (2015); The Found and the Lost (2016); Five Ways to Forgiveness (2017); So Far, So Good (2018); A Visit from Dr. Katz (1988); Fire and Stone (1989); Fish Soup (1992); A Ride on the Red Mare's Back (1992); Tom Mouse (1998); From Elfland to Poughkeepsie (1973); Dreams Must Explain Themselves (1975); The Language of the Night (1979); Way of the Water's Going (1989); Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (2009); Cheek by Jowl (2009); Words Are My Matter (2016); No Time to Spare (2017); Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing (2018); Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989); Steering the Craft (1998); The Wave in the Mind (2004); Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin (2008); The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 2: Provocative essays on feminism, race, revolution, and the future (2008); The Wiscon Chronicles, Vol.3: Carnival of Feminist SF (2009); The WisCon Chronicles, Volume 4 (2010); The Wiscon Chronicles Volume 5 (2011); The WisCon Chronicles Vol. 6: Futures of Feminism and Fandom (2012); The Wiscon Chronicles Vol 7: Shattering Ableist Narratives (2013); The WisCon Chronicles, Vol.9 (2015); The WisCon Chronicles 11 (2017); Legends (1998); Legends II: Dragon, Sword, and King (1998); Legends 3 (1999); We Say No (1989); We Say No: Chronicles 1963-1991 (1989); Exiled from Almost Everywhere (1993); The Human Front (2001); The Left Left Behind (2009); Lucky Strike (2009); The Underbelly (2010); Mammoths of the Great Plains (2010); The Wild Girls (2011); Modem Times 2.0 (2011); The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (2011); Surfing the Gnarl (2012); Report from Planet Midnight (2012); The Science of Herself (2013); Patty Hearst & The Twinkie Murders: A Tale of Two Trials (2013); New Taboos (2013); Raising Hell (2014); My Life, My Body (2015); Gypsy (2015); Miracles Ain't What They Used to Be (2016); Fire (2017); Totalitopia (2017); The Atheist in the Attic (2018); Thoreau's Microscope (2018); The Beatrix Gates (2019); A City Made of Words (2019).

Movies and television:

Democracy Now! (2018); Dragon writer's tracks (2018); Earthsea (2005); Freethought Radio (2006); Jackanory (1974–1995); Lathe of Heaven (2002); Tales from Earthsea (2006); The Field of Vision (2011); The Lathe of Heaven (1980); The Real History of Science Fiction (2014); The Starlost (1973); The Starlost: The Beginning (1980); Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018).

Ursula K. Le Guin, on books and reading:

 

As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music.

And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.

– Ursula K. Le Guin.

Ursula K. Le Guin, on books:

 

By and large books are mankind's best invention.
– Ursula K. Le Guin.

Ursula K. Le Guin, on writing:

 

When people say, Did you always want to be a writer?
I have to say no! I always WAS a writer.
- Ursula K. Le Guin.