But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.
Ursula K. Le GuinThe use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny.
Ursula K. Le GuinCertainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, better befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts.
Ursula K. Le GuinI donโt think โscience fictionโ is a very good name for it, but itโs the name that weโve got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own. But where I can get prickly and combative is, if Iโm just called a sci-fi writer. Iโm not. Iโm a novelist and poet. Donโt shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I donโt fit, because Iโm all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.
Ursula K. Le Guin