"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" Quotes
In "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," Ursula K. Le Guin explores a utopian society whose happiness depends on the perpetual suffering of a single child, prompting some citizens to choose to leave rather than accept this moral compromise.
short stories | 32 pages | Published in NaN
Quotes
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.
The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there.
They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness.
Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free.
The ones who walk away from Omelas.
Theirs is the human lot. There is no grace in their leaving, no pity, no peace, no redemption.
They were not exiles. They were not refugees.
It is because of this abiding and unchanging truth that the young people and the old people are alike in forgetting it and leaving Omelas.
In Omelas, they do not use mirrors because they are not on good terms with their faces.
