Quotes from Octavia E. Butler

Habits were difficult to break. The habit of living, the habit of fear … even the habit of love.

When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.

Grief hit like that. Something would remind us of the past, of home, of a person, and then we would remember that it was all gone. The person was dead or probably dead. Everything we'd known and treasured was gone.

What is it?" she asked. "Flesh. More like mine than like yours. Different from mine, too, though. It's … the ship." "You're kidding. Your ship is alive?

God is Change And hidden within Change Is surprise, delight, Confusion, pain, Discovery, loss, Opportunity, and growth. As always, God exists To shape And to be shaped.

Embrace diversity. Unite ----- Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those that see you as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed.

I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.

Our adults haven't been wiped out by a plague so they're still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back.

There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren't, the cycles wouldn't keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves.

Pochi ritengono che Dio sia un altro modo di chiamare la natura e questa corrisponde a tutto ciò che non capiscono o non controllano.

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 we did understand them, the Humans got angry and acted as though we had stolen thoughts from their minds.

Sometimes they need to prove to themselves that they still own themselves, that they can still care for themselves, that they still have things—customs—that are their own." "Sounds like an expression of the Human conflict," Aaor said. "It is," I agreed. "They're proving their independence at a time when they're no longer independent...

Earthseed deals with ongoing reality, not with supernatural authority figures. Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.

Gather information. Seek weakness. Watch, wait, and do what you have to to stay alive!

We are a harvest of survivors.

Consider: Whether you're a human being, an insect, a microbe, or a stone, this verse is true. All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change.

More people die           Of unenlightened self-interest           Than of any other disease.

Science fiction," Butler writes, "has long treated people who might or might not exist—extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation.

Why is the universe? To shape God. Why is God? To shape the universe.

Yet God has been here all along, shaping us and being shaped by us in no particular way or in too many ways at once like an amoeba—or like a cancer. Chaos.

I sat where I was, more depressed than ever, hating the whole hopeless, stupid business and wondering whether the human species would ever grow up enough to learn to communicate without using fists of one kind or another.

Power came the way a child came -- with agony.

Learn everything you can from these people, and bring what you learn back to the rest of us. Even the stupid, ugly things that they say and do might be important. Their lying promises might hide a truth. If we collect what we see and hear, if we stay united, work together, support one another, then the time will come when we can win our freedom or kill them or both!

Get focused on arranging to survive so that we can do more than just get batted around by crazy people, desperate people, thugs, and leaders who don't know what they're doing!" She