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Octavia Butler

105 quotes

“If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When it comes to strangers with guns,” I told her, “I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” Travis said. “All the more reason to care about myself and others.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From what I’ve read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You tend to resent people you’re afraid of.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They can create something beautiful, useful, even something worthless. But they create. They don't destroy.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t you know everything?” God smiled. “No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can’t imagine how boring it was.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're truly free for the first time. What could be more difficult than that?”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consider— We are born Not with purpose, But with potential.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is getting better, but that won’t stop a war if politicians and business people decide it’s to their advantage to have one.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beware: Ignorance Protects itself Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When vision fails Direction is lost. When direction is lost Purpose may be forgotten. When purpose if forgotten Emotion rules alone. When emotion rules alone, Destruction...destruction.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now I have been raped. It happened twice. Once on Monday, and again yesterday. It is my Christmas gift from Christian America.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We were snatched away and given alone into the hands of people who believed that it was their duty to break us and remake us in the Christian American image. And, of course, breaking people is much easier than putting them together again. So much agony caused, so much evil done in God’s name.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you hear nonsense like that often enough for long enough, you begin to believe it.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All religions are ultimately cargo cults. Adherents perform required rituals, follow specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally gifted with desired rewards—long life, honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth, victory over opponents, immortality after death, any desired rewards.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are you Earthseed? Do you believe? Belief will not save you. Only actions Guided and shaped By belief and knowledge Will save you. Belief Initiates and guides action— Or it does nothing.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jarrett would be easier to take if he cared half as much about children’s bodies and minds as he pretends to care about their souls.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m not a demagogue.” “That’s too bad. That leaves the field to people who are demagogues—to the Jarrets of the world. And there have always been Jarrets. Probably there always will be.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one thought about what kind of society we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wasting their tax money, educating other people’s children. They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn’t hurt them!”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We’ve also been laughed at, argued with, booed, and threatened with hellfire—or gunfire. But Jarret’s kind of religion and Jarret himself are getting less and less popular these days. Both, it seems, are bad for business, bad for the U. S. Constitution, and bad for a large percentage of the population. They always have been, but now more and more people are willing to say so in public. The Crusaders have terrorized some people into silence, but they’ve just made others very angry.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s a crucifix,” Wright told me when I showed it to him. “It must have been worn by one of the people who lived here. Or maybe the arsonist lost it.” He gave a humorless smile. “You never know who’s liable to turn out to be religious.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had guns,” Celia said. “Iosif didn’t like guns, but Stefan did.” It hadn’t helped him survive.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My ignorance wasn’t just annoying. It was dangerous.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That is the most unromantic declaration of love I’ve ever heard. Or is that what you’re saying? Do you love me, Shori, or do I just taste good?”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can see that our Councils aren’t games like the tribunals humans have. The work of a Council of Judgment is to learn the truth and then decide what to do about it within our law. It isn’t about following laws so strictly that the guilty go unpunished or the innocent are made to suffer. It isn’t about protecting everyone’s rights. It’s about finding the truth, period, and then deciding what to do about it.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing." (p.275)”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I began writing the book with the thought that maybe what we needed was the biological conscience. It does seem to me that there are too many people in this world who would just as soon wipe out half their country if they could rule the other half.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to write about what's going to happen if we keep doing what we've been doing, if we keep recklessly endangering the environment, if we keep paying no attention to economic realities, if we keep paying no attention to educational needs, if we keep doing a lot of the things that are hurting us now. And that's what I wound up writing about. And everything else just kind of fell into it, fell into place.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I began writing science fiction, when I began reading, heck, I wasn't in any of this stuff I read. The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, any way. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in New York Times (2000). Attributed in Conversations with Octavia Butler (2009)
“I was in classes sometimes where I was the only Black person and tend to either get ignored or get petted on the head a lot. Neither is in the slightest useful so I was eager to get away from that and Harlan was not interested in doing either. (1994)”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Obviously in some places you will meet with some nastiness, but it isn't general. The only place I was ever called "nigger," had someone scream nigger at me in public, was in Boston, for goodness sakes. It wasn't a person going to a conference, it was just a stranger who happened to see me standing, waiting for a traffic light. (1990)”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything is political in one way or another. (1997)”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most vampires, I’ve discovered, are men, for some reason. I guess it’s because Dracula, people are kind of feeding off that.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fell into writing it because I saw a bad movie, a movie called Devil Girl from Mars, and went into competition with it. But I think I stayed with it because it was so wide open. It gave me the chance to comment on every aspect of humanity. People tend to think of science fiction as, oh, Star Wars or Star Trek. And the truth is, there are no closed doors, and there are no required formulas. You can go anywhere with it.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a vast and terrible sibling rivalry going within the human family as we satisfy our desires for territory, dominance, and exclusivity. How strange: In our ongoing eagerness to create aliens, we express our need for them, and we express our deep fear of being alone in a universe that cares no more for us than it does for stones or suns or any other fragments of itself. And yet we are unable to get along with those aliens who are closest to us, those aliens who are of course ourselves. All the more need then to create more cooperative aliens, supernatural beings or intelligences from the stars. Sometimes we just need someone to talk to, someone we can trust to listen and care, someone who knows us as we really are and as we rarely get to know one another, someone whose whole agenda is us. Like children, we do still need great and powerful parent figures and we need invisible friends. What is adult behavior after all but modified, disguised, excused childhood behavior? The more educated, the more sophisticated, the more thoughtful we are, the more able we are to conceal the child within us. No matter. The child persists and it's lonely.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Monophobic Response" (1995), anthologized in Dark Matter by Sheree Thomas (2000)
“What were they saying?” Daly asked. “They disapprove of your profession,” Doro told him. “Heathen savages,” Daly muttered. “They’re like animals. They’re all cannibals.” “These aren’t,” Doro said, “though some of the their neighbors are.” “All of them,” Daly insisted. “Just give them the chance.” Doro smiled. “Well, no doubt the missionaries will reach them eventually and teach them to practice only symbolic cannibalism.” Daly jumped. He considered himself a pious man in spite of his work. “You shouldn’t say such things,” he whispered. “Not even you are beyond the reach of God.” “Spare me your mythology,” Doro said, “and your righteous indignation.” Daly had been Doro’s man too long to be pampered in such matters. “At least we cannibals are honest about what we do,” Doro continued. “We don’t pretend as your slavers do to be acting for the benefit of our victims’ souls. We don’t tell ourselves we’ve caught them to teach them civilized religion.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tomas stopped and looked at the three Oankali. “Do you believe in spirits?” “We believe in life,” Ahajas said. “Life after death?” Ahajas smoothed her tentacles briefly in agreement. “When I’m dead,” she said, “I will nourish other life.” “But I mean—” “If I died on a lifeless world, a world that could sustain some form of life if it were tenacious enough, organelles within each cell of my body would survive and evolve. In perhaps a thousand million years, that world would be as full of life as this one.” “...it would?” “Yes. Our ancestors have seeded a great many barren worlds that way. Nothing is more tenacious than the life we are made of. A world of life from apparent death, from dissolution. That’s what we believe in.” “Nothing more?” Ahajas became smooth enough with amusement to reflect firelight. “No, Lelka. Nothing more.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Overall, the Pox has had the effect of an installment-plan World War III. In fact, there were several small, bloody shooting wars going on around the world during the Pox. 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. Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war. 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.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did not read any Langston Hughes until I was an adult, but I remember being carried away by him and Gwendolyn Brooks. When I was growing up, the only blacks you came across in school were slaves-who were always well treated-and later, when we got to individuals, Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Booker T. Washington started a college, and Carver did something with peanuts; we never knew what. We did not read anything by a black writer except [James Weldon] Johnson's The Creation, and that was in high school. We managed to get through adolescence without being introduced to any black culture. (1996)”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source