Octavia Butler Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Doubt, Able, Obsession

  Octavia E. Butler (2011). “Bloodchild and Other Stories”, p.138, Seven Stories Press

  7 Copy quote

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

  Octavia Butler

  Thinking, People, Needs

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• You are hierarchical. That's the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all... That was like ignoring cancer.

  Octavia Butler

  Cancer, Pride, Animal

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• I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. I"m trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Trying, Fancy

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Sower”, p.141, Open Road Media

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• We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life.

  Octavia Butler

  Death, Giving, Grove

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Talents”, p.71, Open Road Media

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• There's no narcotic like exhaustion.

  Octavia Butler

  Narcotics, Exhaustion

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Sower”, p.226, Open Road Media

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Mind, Energy, Mouths

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago”, p.765, Open Road Media

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Toilets, Littles

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

  Octavia Butler

  Stars, Destiny, Roots

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Sower”, p.428, Open Road Media

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

  Octavia Butler

  Savages, Fierce, Get Away

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• Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Frustration, Profession

  18 Copy quote

• That which could hunger, could starve.

  Octavia Butler

  Hunger

  16 Copy quote

• Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God. Earthseed: The Books of the Living Lauren Oya Olamina

  Octavia Butler

  Powerful, Book, Reality

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Years, People, Fortune

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Seed to Harvest: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster”, p.32, Open Road Media

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Mean, Men, People

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Religious, Lying, Mean

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• The only lasting truth is change. God is change.

  Octavia Butler

  Truth Is, Lasting, Change God

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Talents”, p.7, Open Road Media

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• Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.

  Octavia Butler

  Long, Slavery, Process

  "Kindred".

  4 Copy quote

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

  Octavia Butler

  Crazy, Trying, Spirit

  Octavia Butler (2004). “Kindred”, p.57, Beacon Press

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Pain, Hypocrite, Sleep

  Octavia E. Butler (2014). “Kindred”, p.165, Hachette UK

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Pain, Writing, Order

  "Unseen Octavia E Butler stories recovered" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. April 30, 2014.

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• 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.

  Octavia Butler

  Beautiful, Doe, Ugly

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago”, p.419, Open Road Media

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

  Octavia Butler

  Growing Up, Anxiety, Lust

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Imago”, p.168, Open Road Media

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

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Long, Comeback

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• Religion is a dangerous prod, because it can always be misused and get out of hand, but it's useful for keeping people on the straight and narrow.

  Octavia Butler

  Women, Hands, People

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