Octavia E. Butler Quotes
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I got up to leave. There was nothing more to be said. He had asked for what he knew I could not give, and I had refused.
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At school I was always taller than the rest of my class, and because I was an only child, I was comfortable with adults but shy and awkward with other kids. I was quiet, bookish, and in spite of my size, hopeless at sports. In short, I was different. And even in the earliest grades, I got pounded for it.
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I lost an arm on my last trip home.
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I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children's stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, 'Can't you write anything normal?'
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'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.
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I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision.
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He was surprised when I ignored him. He is wealthy and arrogant and used to being listened to even when what he says is nonsense-as it often is.
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Several years ago, when I was about to start a novel, I thought I might get some mileage out of the idea of a civilization in which people somehow felt - that is, they shared - all the pain and all the pleasure they caused one another.
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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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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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Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?
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A 10-pound sack of potatoes lasts a long time.
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I'm very happy alone.
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To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
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'I didn’t want to scare you. We don’t want to scare anyone.''No? Well, sometimes it’s a good thing to scare people. Sometimes fear is all that will keep them from doing stupid things.'
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Too many writers get into that gross-'em-out factor.
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Science fiction is not formulaic.
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When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.
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Simple peck-order bullying is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world.
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I had novels to write, so I wrote them.
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How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.
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All strugglesAre essentiallyPower struggles.Who will rule,Who will lead,Who will define,refine,confine,design,Who will dominate.All strugglesAre essentiallyPower struggles, And mostare no more intellectualthan two ramsknocking their heads together.
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I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
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To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living