Octavia E. Butler

Quotes

• “Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to ac...”
• “Let them see that you trust them & let them solve their own problems, make their own decisions.Do that & they will commi...”
• “My brother Keith begged to go with us as usual. He'll turn thirteen in a few days - August 14 - and the thought of waiti...”
• “Your teachersAre all around you.All that you perceive,All that you experience,All that is given to youor taken from you,...”
• “It's better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and...”
• “There must be good marriages somewhere, but to me, marriage had the feel of people tolerating each other, enduring each ...”
• “The essentials," I answered, "are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their c...”
• “This is the biggest lot of abolitionist trash I ever saw.”“No it isn’t,” I said. “That book wasn’t even written until a ...”
• “Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generatio...”
• “I found that I couldn't muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to...”
• “My relative examined you, observed a few of your normal body cells, compared them with what it had learned from other hu...”
• “I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem...”
• “I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the ...”
• “Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to...”
• “Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about scie...”
• “Tolerance, like any aspect of peace, is forever a work in progress, never completed, and, if we're as intelligent as we ...”
• “People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling...”
• “I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage an...”
• “Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve.”
• “Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.”
• “I'm Valerie Rye,' she said, savoring the words. 'It's all right for you to talk to me.”
• “He rubbed his head again. 'Five years is longer than it sounds. So much longer.”
• “I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.”
• “I do what I can,' I said. 'When I can do more, I will. You know that.”
• “Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.”
• “God is Change.Earthseed: The Books of the LivingLauren Oya Olamina”
• “Was an eternity of absolute ease just another name for hell?”
• “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”
• “Everything is so soft here,' he said, 'so easy...' 'I know”
• “Consider--We are bornNot with purpose,But with potential.”
• “There is no endTo what a living worldWill demand of you.”
• “I began writing about power because I had so little.”
• “People do blame you for the things they do to you.”
• “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
• “Power came the way a child came -- with agony.”
• “A 10-pound sack of potatoes lasts a long time.”
• “Read every day and learn from what you read.”
• “Bloodchild" is my pregnant man story.”
• “I'm very happy alone.”