I don't want to be a propagandist, no matter how good the cause. I want to tell stories. It's just that the stories have to square with my consciousness as a woman and my conscience as a human being.
Ursula K. Le GuinI have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.
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