"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."
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Quote collection
Octavia Butler quotes (page 5 of 6)
110 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain."
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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."
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"It's interesting how many science fiction writers get going when they are very young. I was on a program with Greg Bear and he mentioned that he had gotten started writing when he was eight. And I began writing when I was 10. I think we're influenced by the stuff, we find it and we love it and we're influenced by it....I know I collected my first rejection slip when I was 13, and I went on collecting them for a long time after that."
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"A victim of God may, Through learning adaption, Become a partner of God, A victim of God may, Through forethought and planning, Become a shaper of God. Or a victim of God may, Through shortsightedness and fear, Remain God's victim, God's plaything, God's prey."
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"I think climbing mountains or buildings or whatever has been a really good metaphor for finishing my work. Because no matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can't possibly do this, somehow you do."
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"There's no narcotic like exhaustion."
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"Sometimes, one must become a master to avoid becoming a slave."
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"Slavery was a long slow process of dulling."
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"I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal."
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"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."
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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."
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"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."
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"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"
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"He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying."
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"To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living"
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"Margaret Weylin complained because she couldn't find anything to complain about."
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"I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,...an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive."
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"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation."
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"On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that."
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