Quotes from Octavia E. Butler

cultist" is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn't quite match Jarret's version of Christianity.

No feeling was better than that of being surrounded by her own. Her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

What's your point?" "The changes." I thought for a moment. "They were slow changes compared to anything that might happen here, but it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change.

The earthquake had done a lot of damage in Hollister, but the people hadn't gone animal. They seemed to be helping one another with repairs and looking after their own destitute. Imagine that.

Taking care of other people can be a good cure for nightmares like yours and maybe hers.

seduce people and hold them.

Most people had suspected it had begun in Los Angeles where, according to them, most stupid or wicked things began. Local prejudice. I didn't tell any of them I was from the L.A. area.

Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.

every time I understand a little more, I wonder why it's taken me so long—why there was ever a time when I didn't understand a thing so obvious and real and true.

most of us voted for Vice President Edward Jay Smith. None of us wanted an empty man like Smith in the White House, but even a man without an idea in his head is better than a man who means to lash us all back to his particular God the way Jesus lashed the money changers out of the temple.

When it comes to strangers with guns," I told her, "I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.

There's always a ot to do before you get to go to heaven.

I couldn't move her. She was afraid, and that made her defensive.

When apparent stability disintegrates, As it must— God is Change— People tend to give in To fear and depression, To need and greed. When no influence is strong enough To unify people They divide. They struggle, One against one, Group against group, For survival, position, power.

The Rohkohn Hao, Tahneh, was sharing her evening meal with her chief judge and discussing the current drought when she first learned of the foreigners who had entered her territory.

Cities controlled by big companies are old hat in science fiction. My grandmother left a whole bookcase of old science fiction novels. The company-city genre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped "the company." I've never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that's the way it will be. That's the way it is.

Anyanwu said. "This is the way I look when I do nothing. And this is the way I look when I marry a new husband." "But … you

Well, we're barely a nation at all anymore, but I'm glad we're still in space. We have to be going some place other than down the toilet.

They help us to shape God and to accept and work with the shapes that God imposes on us. God is power, and in the end, God prevails. But we can rig the game in our own favor if we understand that God exists to be shaped, and will be shaped, with or without our forethought, with or without our intent.

you think they want to wash?" I asked Harry and Zahra.

That is why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.

Forever uniting, growing, dissolving-- forever Changing. The universe is God's self-portrait.

I'm not some kind of potential Job, long suffering, stiff necked, then, at last, either humble before an all-knowing almighty, or destroyed. My God doesn't love me or hate me or watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love for or loyalty to my God. My God just is.

All struggles Are essentially power struggles.