Quotes from Octavia E. Butler

The penalty for being too poor to be worth robbing is a beating, a rape, and/or death.

When no influence is strong enough To unify people They divide.

Naturally, trouble makes for greater drama than does happiness, and it asks more in the way of human response

Quando si tratta di estranei armati, penso che il sospetto ti aiuti a restare vivo più della fiducia.

DORO DISCOVERED THE WOMAN by accident when he went to see what was left of one of his seed villages.

Chaos Is God's most dangerous face— Amorphous, roiling, hungry. Shape Chaos— Shape God. Act. Alter the speed Or the direction of Change. Vary the scope of Change. Recombine the seeds of Change. Transmute the impact of Change. Seize Change. Use it. Adapt and grow. THE

Dalle sue ceneri una fenice prima deve bruciare.

discovery rather than invention, exploration rather than creation.

Why can't I do what others have done - ignore the obvious. Live a normal life. It's hard enough just to do that in this world.

If I was to live, if others were to live, he must live. I didn't dare test the paradox.

We are born Not with purpose, But with potential.

These were stupid affairs—wastes of life and treasure. They were fought, ostensibly, to defend against vicious foreign enemies. All too often, they were actually fought because inadequate leaders did not know what else to do.

even people who loved me could demand more of me than I could give-and expect their demands to be met simply because I owed them.

I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal. What did it used to be to make people Bankole's age want to trust it. I know what the old books say, but still, I wonder.

La mia 'freddezza' lo turbava, ma lui non era un empatico e non capiva che per me il dolore era il male e la morte la fine del dolore. Per quel che mi riguardava, nessun verso della Bibbia poteva cambiare questa verità. Harry non capiva l'empatia, ma infondo perché avrebbe dovuto? La maggior parte della gente ne sapeva poco o niente.

But an unpleasant thing should be done quickly if it must be done at all.

That way they don't have to risk going outside where things are so dangerous and crazy. It's bad enough that some people—my father for one—have to go out to work at least once a week. None of us goes out to school any more. Adults get nervous about kids going outside.

It was no news to me that other people's fathers could be monsters.

PRODIGY IS, AT ITS essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all. EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING by Lauren Oya Olamina

Gli essere umani sono bravissimi sono bravissimi a crearsi un inferno perfino nell'abbondanza.

I don't see what's so funny about a man combing his beard," he muttered, and put way his comb.

I suppose that's because we've been displaced again from the center of the universe. We human beings, I mean. Down through history, in myth and even in science, we've kept putting ourselves in the center, and then being evicted.

cities?" she asked. "Bound to be if Olivar succeeds. This country is going to be parceled out as a source of cheap labor and cheap land. When people like those in Olivar beg to sell themselves, our surviving cities are bound to wind up the economic colonies of whoever can afford to buy them.

That scares me to death sometimes -- always feeling driven to do something I don't know how to do.