Quotes from Octavia E. Butler

to be aware of a place where blackness was not a mark of slavery.

We're an adaptable species," she said, refusing to be stopped, "but it's wrong to inflict suffering just because your victim can endure it." "Learn

God is Change, And in the end, God prevails. But meanwhile… Kindness eases Change. Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful Positive obsession Blunts pain, Diverts rage, And engages each of us In the greatest, The most intense Of our chosen struggles

There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.

You want to know how moral she is?" His tone made me frown. "What do you mean?" "If she chases me any harder, she and I will wind up playing a scene from that Bible she reads. The scene between Potiphar's wife and Joseph.

My love of writing is an outgrowth of my love of reading. Both helped me to escape boredom, to perform thought experiments, and to deal with the daily news. I can create a world that makes more sense than this one.

Freedom is dangerous, Cory, but it's precious, too. You can't just throw it away or let it slip away. You can't sell it for bread and pottage.

It's too easy to follow bad but attractive leaders, embrace pleasurable but destructive habits, ignore looming disaster because maybe it won't happen after all—or maybe it will only happen to other people. That kind of thinking is part of what it means to be adolescent.

You aren't flawed. I noticed even before I went to my parents that there was a wholeness to you—a strong wholeness. I don't know whether you'll be what your parents wanted you to be, but whatever you become, you'll be complete. You'll have within yourself everything you need to content yourself. Just follow what seems right to you.

Every one knows that change is inevitable. From the second law of thermodynamics to Darwinian evolution, from Buddhism's insistence that nothing is permanent and all suffering results from our delusions of permanence to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes ("To everything there is a season"), change is part of life, of existence, of the common wisdom.

But there's no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you.

I mean, that guy who wants to be President, that Jarret, he would call you all heathens or pagans or something." Indeed, he would. "Yes," I said. "He does seem to enjoy calling people things like that. Once he's made everyone who isn't like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn't cause. That's easier than trying to fix the problems.

Jarret's supporters are more than a little seduced by Jarret's talk of making America great again. He seems to be unhappy with certain other countries. We could wind up in a war. Nothing like a war to rally people around flag, country, and great leader.

How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?

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.

It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.

Thus, when her enemies came to kill her, she knew more about surviving than they did about killing. And

Seize change. Use it. Adapt and grow.

Do you think our world is coming to an end?" Dad asked, and with no warning at all, I almost started crying. I had all I could do to hold it back. What I thought was, "No, I think your world is coming to an end, and maybe you with it.

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.

They do seem to be adopting each other, though," I said. "And taking care of other people can be a good cure for nightmares like yours and maybe hers." "You sound as though you know." I nodded. "I live in this world, too.

Human purpose isn't what you say it is or what I say it is. It's what your biology says it is--what your genes say it is.

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. What is left of it now, what it has become, I do not know.

Remembering wasn't safe. You could lose your mind, remembering.