To write this introduction I read the novel for the fifth time and I’m still finding new rooms behind new doors I never noticed before. (Location 63)
For most of their twenty-six-day month and cycle, Gethenians are androgynous and celibate, but for two or three days of kemmer they become sexually active as either male or female, with no say in which. (Location 70)
Le Guin recognizes that it’s the difference that is the point, that no bridge between two people—no friendship, no love—can exist without difference. (Location 112)
Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive. (Location 209)
The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. (Location 209)
On a world where a common table implement is a little device with which you crack the ice that has formed on your drink between drafts, hot beer is a thing you come to appreciate. (Location 340)
I thought that at table Estraven’s performance had been womanly, all charm and tact and lack of substance, specious and adroit. (Location 345)
when action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. (Location 718)
“To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.” (Location 1072)
Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If (Location 1079)
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” (Location 1083)
The society of Gethen, in its daily functioning and in its continuity, is without sex. (Location 1357)
A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, (Location 1376)
The stranger who comes unknown is a guest. Your enemy is your neighbor. (Location 1409)
Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way. (Location 3098)
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I talk about the gods; I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. (Location 176)
