Octavia Butler quotes - page 4

Are you Earthseed? Do you believe? Belief will not save you. Only actions Guided and shaped By belief and knowledge Will save you. Belief Initiates and guides action- Or it does nothing. (Octavia Butler)
They had clearly feared turn-of-the-century irrationality-religious overzealousness on one side, destructive hedonism on the other, with both heated by ideological intolerance and corporate greed. View quote
Octavia Butler
From what I've read,” I said to him, "the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again. View quote
Octavia Butler
We were snatched away and given alone into the hands of people who believed that it was their duty to break us and remake us in the Christian American image. And, of course, breaking people is much easier than putting them together again. So much agony caused, so much evil done in God's name. View quote
Octavia Butler
Now I have been raped. It happened twice. Once on Monday, and again yesterday. It is my Christmas gift from Christian America. View quote
Octavia Butler
"He's a fair man.” I looked at him, startled. "I said fair,” he repeated. "Not likable.” I kept quiet. His father wasn't the monster he could have been with the power he held over his slaves. He wasn't a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper. View quote
Octavia Butler
Overall, the Pox has had the effect of an installment-plan World War III. In fact, there were several small, bloody shooting wars going on around the world during the Pox. These were stupid affairs-wastes of life and treasure. They were fought, ostensibly, to defend against vicious foreign enemies. All too often, they were actually fought because inadequate leaders did not know what else to do. Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war. Amid all this, somehow, the United States of America suffered a major, nonmilitary defeat. It lost no important war, yet it did not survive the Pox. Perhaps it simply lost sight of what it once intended to be, then blundered aimlessly until it exhausted itself. View quote
Octavia Butler
"It was an old passion,” he said. "I haven't touched a violin for months. I didn't know what that would be like.” "What is it like?” she asked. He began to walk so that she almost missed his answer. "An amputation,” he whispered. View quote
Octavia Butler
Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own. View quote
Octavia Butler
The only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it. View quote
Octavia Butler
If everyone could feel everyone else's pain, who would torture? (Octavia Butler)
It's better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. View quote
Octavia Butler
Sometimes I write to keep from going crazy. There's a world of things I don't feel free to talk to anyone about. View quote
Octavia Butler
I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you. View quote
Octavia Butler
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. View quote
Octavia Butler
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. View quote
Octavia Butler
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. View quote
Octavia Butler
Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to. View quote
Octavia Butler
I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time. View quote
Octavia Butler
Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish. View quote
Octavia Butler
I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership. (Octavia Butler)
I'll tell you,” she said softly. "But you won't like it.” He looked away from her. "I asked for the truth. Whether I like it or not, I have to know. View quote
Octavia Butler
He didn't look all right to me. "Has anyone gone for the doctor?” "Marse Tom don't hardly get Doc West for ague. He says all the doc knows is bleeding and blistering and purging and puking and making folks sicker than they was to start.”. View quote
Octavia Butler
Some of his neighbors found out what I was doing and offered him fatherly advice. It was dangerous to educate slaves, they warned. Education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery. It spoiled them for field work. The Methodist minister said it made them disobedient, made them want more than the Lord intended them to have. View quote
Octavia Butler
She was too alert, too alive not to have the kind of mind that probed and reached and got her into trouble now and then. View quote
Octavia Butler