Octavia Butler Quotes - Page 3

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

That which could hunger, could starve.

Not everyone has been a bully or the victim of bullies, but everyone has seen bullying, and seeing it, has responded to it by joining in or objecting, by laughing or keeping silent, by feeling disgusted or feeling interested.

Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everyone had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant. And once you did understand them, the Humans got angry and acted as though you had stolen thoughts from their minds.

Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.

There's no narcotic like exhaustion.

Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.

When I meet a woman who attracts me, I prefer women,' she said. 'And when I meet a man who attracts me, I prefer men.' 'You mean you haven't made up your mind yet.' 'I mean exactly what I said. I told you you wouldn't like it. Most people who ask want me definitely on one side or the other.

Belief initiates and guides action - or it does nothing.

He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.

I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.

Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.

In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.

It's when people begin using their religion as just a way of getting power over other people that scares me. I'm afraid that's what's going on in a lot of cases right now. When people deliberately tell lies, Creationism for instance, and pretend, "Oh, it's not really religion." I mean they know they're lying, and yet they're the religious people. There's something wrong there.

I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.

Nothing. It just finds you a lot more attractive than it does most Humans. What can you do with a beautiful woman that you can’t do with an ugly one? Nothing. It’s just a matter of preference.

Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.

The only lasting truth is change. God is change.

No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.

Most of what I do is science fiction. Some of the things I do are fantasy. I don't like the labels, they're marketing tools, and I certainly don't worry about them when I'm writing. They are also inhibiting factors; you wind up not getting read by certain people, or not getting sold to certain people because they think they know what you write. You say science fiction and everybody thinks Star Wars or Star Trek.

...I realized that I knew less about loneliness than I had thought - and much less than I would know when he went away.