Octavia Butler Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I'm a 48-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Los Angeles -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

  Octavia Butler

  Ambition, Oil And Water, Years

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• A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.

  Octavia Butler

  Tree, Parent, Shadow

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Sower”, p.94, Open Road Media

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• Rejections are painful, but inevitable. They're every writer's rite of passage.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Rejection, Painful

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Bloodchild: And Other Stories”, p.128, Open Road Media

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• Life is getting better, but that won't stop a war if politicians and business people decide it's to their advantage to have one.

  Octavia Butler

  War, People, Get Better

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Talents”, p.100, Open Road Media

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• Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Stories

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• When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.

  Octavia Butler

  Rage, Choke

  Octavia E. Butler (2011). “Fledgling: A Novel”, p.275, Seven Stories Press

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• The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Character, People

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

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• Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.

  Octavia Butler

  Giving, Different, Needs

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago”, p.417, Open Road Media

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• All religions are ultimately cargo cults. Adherents perform required rituals, follow specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally gifted with desired rewards long life, honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth, victory over opponents, immortality after death, any desired rewards.

  Octavia Butler

  Children, Long, Honor

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• If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible

  Octavia Butler

  Air, Desire, Would Be

  Octavia E. Butler (1998). “Parable of the Talents: A Novel”, p.363, Seven Stories Press

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• No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities.

  Octavia Butler

  Past, Thinking, People

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• Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.

  Octavia Butler

  Civilization, People, Way

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Seed to Harvest: Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster”, p.134, Open Road Media

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• I have this theory that anything that happens to you that leaves you alive and intact can be used somewhere in your writing.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Alive, Used

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• Sometimes, one must become a master to avoid becoming a slave.

  Octavia Butler

  Becoming, Sometimes, Slave

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Wild Seed”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• Beware At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease

  Octavia Butler

  War, Self, People

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Talents”, p.97, Open Road Media

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• Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable.

  Octavia Butler

  Inspiration, Forget, Habit

  Octavia E. Butler (2011). “Bloodchild and Other Stories”, p.145, Seven Stories Press

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• ...I can write my own stories and I can write myself in.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Stories, My Own

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• The big talent is persistence.

  Octavia Butler

  Persistence, Talent, Bigs

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

  Octavia Butler

  Who I Am, Brain

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago”, p.98, Open Road Media

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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.

  Octavia Butler

  Tired, Thinking, Climbing

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• To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living

  Octavia Butler

  Book, Behavior, Consequence

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Sower”, p.98, Open Road Media

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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

  Octavia Butler

  Powerful, Book, Reality

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• If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Persistence, Needs

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