"To light a candle is to cast a shadow." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea "The wise don't need to ask, the fool asks in vain." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
skibodi "I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
"I am yours, by parentage and custom and by duty undertaken towards you. I am your wizard. But it is time that you recalled that, though I am a servant, I am not your servant." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
"To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea,
"Ogion went on a halfmile or so, and said at last, 'To hear, one must be silent'."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea,
It might seem strange that on an island fifty miles wide, in a village under cliffs that stare out forever on the sea, a child may grow to manhood never having stepped in a boat or dipped his finger in salt water, but so it is." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea,
"The tricks of illusion came to him so easily that it seemed he had been born knowing them and needed only to be reminded."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
"Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea,
"Then his aunt was a little afraid of his strength, for this was as strong a spell as she knew how to weave: she had tried not only to gain control of his speech and silence, but to bind him at the same time to her service in the craft for sorcery. Yet even as the spell bound him, he had laughed."
"When it rained Ogion would not even say the spell that every weather-worker knows, to send the storm aside. In a land where sorcerers come thick, like Gont or the Enlades, you may see a raincloud blundering slowly from side to side and place to place as one spell shunts it on to the next, till at last it is buffeted out over the sea where it can rain in peace. But Ogion let the rain fall where it would. Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen, and wondered what was the use of having power if you were too wise to use it."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea