Quotes from Octavia E. Butler

This would be so goddamn much easier if I weren't human," she said. "Think about it. If I weren't human, why the hell would I care whether you got raped?

Twenty-five or thirty words are supposed to be enough in a news bullet to explain either a war or an unusual set of Christmas lights. Bullets are cheap and full of big dramatic pictures. Some bullets are true virtuals that allow people to experience—safely—hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and mass murder. Hell of a kick.

I imagined the United States becoming, slowly, through the combined effects of lack of foresight and short-term unenlightened self-interest, a third world country.

How many people, I wonder, can be penned up and tormented—reeducated—before it begins to matter to the majority of Americans? How does this penning people up look to other countries? Do they know? Would they care? There are worse things happening here in the States and elsewhere, I know.

Sometimes you have to remember a feeling you haven't had for a long time and bring it back so you can transmit it to someone else or use a feeling you have about one thing to help someone understand something else.

You're right. People do blame you for the things they do to you.

She wasn't writing romance or feel-good novels," mystery author Walter Mosley said. "She was writing very difficult, brilliant work.

Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of "heathen houses of devil-worship," he has a simple answer: "Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us

You do everything they tell you," she wept, "and they still treat you like a old dog. Go here, open your legs; go there, bust your back. What they care! I ain't s'pose to have no feelin's!

Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. It is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying.

Entropy, the idea that the natural flow of heat is from something hot to something cool - not the other way - so that the universe itself is cooling down, running down, dissipating its energy.

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don't have it, it doesn't matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent.

I saw a woman die in childbirth once," he said. I nodded. "I never saw it, but I kept hearing about it happening. It was pretty common back then, I guess. Poor medical care or none at all." "No, medical care had nothing to do with the case I saw. This woman's master strung her up by her wrists and beat her until the baby came out of her—dropped onto the ground.

All prayers are to Self And, in one way or another, All prayers are answered. Pray, But beware. Your desires, Whether or not you achieve them Will determine who you become.

When vision fails Direction is lost. When direction is lost Purpose may be forgotten. When purpose is forgotten Emotion rules alone. When emotion rules alone, Destruction…destruction.

Then show me what you are. Give me the trust you ask me to give you.

You controlled both animals and people by controlling their reproduction—controlling it absolutely.

We do what we do, Lilith.

It has told us about you," Ahajas said as they carried Nikanj down to the lower corridors. Kahguyaht preceded them, opening walls. Jdahya and Tediin followed.

How many people, I wonder, can be penned up and tormented—reeducated—before it begins to matter to the majority of Americans? How does this penning people up look to other countries? Do they know? Would they care?

The self must create Its own reasons for being. To shape God Shape self.

He's had notable success with this carrot-and-stick approach. Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubbornness is your problem.

When vision fails Direction is lost. When direction is lost Purpose may be forgotten. When purpose is forgotten Emotion rules alone. When emotion rules alone, Destruction…destruction. F

If you work hard enough at something that doesn't matter, you can forget for a while about the things that do.