Death Quote by Ursula K. Le Guin — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.”

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”

“[T]hey had not taught the boy to lie. But they had not taught him to know truth from lies.”

“Death and life are the same thing-like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same...They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”

“He began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, 'Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.”

“Death is the reward for living”

“Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen.”

“Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.”

“This book is dedicated to my children, Pi, Coco, and Jay. When your grandkids are old enough to read this book, tell them how much I loved you.”

“The bird is gone, and in what meadow does it now sing?”

“Heroes and scholars represent the opposite extremes... The scholar struggles for the benefit of all humanity, sometimes to reduce physical effort, sometimes to reduce pain, and sometimes to postpone death, or at least render it more bearable. In contrast, the patriot sacrifices a rather substantial part of humanity for the sake of his own prestige. His statue is always erected on a pedestal of ruins and corpses... In contrast, all humanity crowns a scholar, love forms the pedestal of his statues, and his triumphs defy the desecration of time and the judgment of history.”