Ursula K. Le Guin

I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.

I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.

I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write.

I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'

Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby.

The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.