"Rejections are painful, but inevitable. They're every writer's rite of passage."
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Quote collection
Octavia Butler quotes (page 4 of 6)
110 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"...I realized that I knew less about loneliness than I had thought - and much less than I would know when he went away."
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"Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere."
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"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 kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people."
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"Most of us don't have to worry about being shot of we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility."
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"Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about."
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"No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest."
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"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."
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"Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you."
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"But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical."
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"And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy."
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"We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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"A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't."
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"I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership."
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"...I can write my own stories and I can write myself in."
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"The big talent is persistence."
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