Ursula K. Le Guin Giving Quotations

It is a terrible thing, this kindess that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give.

Readers, after all, are making the world with you. You give them the materials, but it's the readers who build that world in their own minds.

Everything gives way before the recurring torment and festivity of passion.

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.