Octavia E. Butler Quotes
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The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.
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Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everyone had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant. And once you did understand them, the Humans got angry and acted as though you had stolen thoughts from their minds.
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'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.'
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Lilith might be strong enough now to handle troublemakers herself, but she did not want to do that unless she had to. It would not help the people become a community, and if they could not unite, nothing else they did would matter.
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We give our deadTo the orchardsAnd the groves.We give our deadTo life.
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If you don’t care about my people, why should I care about yours?
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Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.
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Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.
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Most vampires I have discovered are men for some reason. I guess it's because of Dracula; people are kind of feeding off that.
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Now I have been raped.It happened twice. Once on Monday, and again yesterday. It is my Christmas gift from Christian America.
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A treeCannot growIn its parents’ shadows.
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Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn’t vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.
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Short-lived people, people who could die, did not know what enemies loneliness and boredom could be.
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I might not have believed this if a Human had said it. Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everybody had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant.
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'What will they do when they have only the herbs' he asked her.'Live or die as best they can,' she said. 'Everything truly alive dies sooner or later.'
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Beware At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease
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Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
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Margaret Weylin complained because she couldn’t find anything to complain about.
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A pet. In pets, free will was tolerated only as long as the pet owner found it amusing.
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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
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He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.
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Jarrett would be easier to take if he cared half as much about children’s bodies and minds as he pretends to care about their souls.
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'When it comes to strangers with guns,' I told her, 'I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.'
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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.