Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.

There are two kinds of knowledge, local and universal.

You fear them because you fear death, and rightly: for death is terrible and must be feared,' the mage said...'And life is also a terrible thing,' Ged said, 'and must be feared and praised.

Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone.

... the habit of literature [is] the best defense against believing the half-truths of ideologues and the lies of demagogues.

I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy.

The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.