Octavia Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes they need to prove to themselves that they still own themselves, that they can still care for themselves, that they still have things - customs - that are their own."
"Sounds like an expression of the Human conflict," Aaor said.
"It is," I agreed. "They're proving their independence at a time when they're no longer independent ... — Octavia E. Butler

Souls! When have you seen your own soul - that you're so certain you have one? — Octavia Butler

The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way. — Octavia Butler

I like to read Octavia E. Butler's 'Wild Seed' over and over again. And J. California Cooper's 'The Wake of the Wind.' That one makes me cry from joy. I'll mourn - I'll actually mourn - and then I'll cry from joy. She's wonderful. — Jill Scott

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm. — Octavia E. Butler

Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everyone had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant. — Octavia E. Butler

I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things. — Octavia E. Butler

Let's just say that I have a tendency if I am uncomfortable in a situation to speak my mind. — Octavia Spencer

Too many writers get into that gross-'em-out factor. — Octavia E. Butler

To get along with God,
Consider the consequences of your behavior.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living — Octavia E. Butler

how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn't give him power. — Octavia E. Butler

I'm trying to speak
to write-the truth. Im trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. — Octavia E. Butler

no one had been able to give him a reason why people who had excellent reasons to suppose they would destroy themselves if they did a certain thing chose to do that thing anyway. — Octavia E. Butler

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 — Octavia E. Butler

There was no real comfort in being alone with her thoughts, her memories, but somehow the illusion of freedom lessened her despair. — Octavia E. Butler

I will be girl with claws, heart bared and bruised and wanting. I am soul-shattering wolf-howl. I am lioness and hunt. I am more and enough. I am. — Venetta Octavia

Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, and eases your mind — Octavia E. Butler

Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all. — Octavia E. Butler

Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve. — Octavia E. Butler

She jumps on me for sharing pain with the living, but she tries to share it with the dead. — Octavia E. Butler

The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I'm a character actor, this I know. And I'm getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren't many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch. — Octavia Spencer

As a black and as a woman, I didn't think that I would really want to live in any of the eras before this, because I would inevitably be worse off. I would have spent more time struggling just to prove I was human than doing my work. — Octavia E. Butler

I prefer doing interviews where people don't have to interpret what you say. I'm going to be real honest. — Octavia Spencer

No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities. — Octavia Butler

I don't have one role that I want to play. I guess ... I want to be a producer. I want to be an activist. I want to be proactive in bringing about work for men, women, boys, girls, everybody who is good at what they do and deserve a shot at it. — Octavia Spencer

I was always a closet lover of acting. My mom was very practical. She never, ever restricted our dreams, always told us we could do or be anything. Then I said, 'Maybe I want to be an actor'. And she said, 'Maybe not that'. — Octavia Spencer

A victim of God may, Through learning adaption, Become a partner of God, A victim of God may, Through forethought and planning, Become a shaper of God. Or a victim of God may, Through shortsightedness and fear, Remain God's victim, God's plaything, God's prey. — Octavia Butler

Kindness eases change
Love quiets fear — Octavia E. Butler

I had novels to write, so I wrote them. — Octavia E. Butler

I like a person who knows how to say something dark at a very dark moment. The darker the moment and the darker the comic, the better. Something that is so wrong on all levels. — Octavia Spencer

I think if I weren't so squeamish, I would have been some sort of forensic analyst. And I can't do anything with a microscope, because then I start thinking about the world of germs around us. — Octavia Spencer

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed someone who looked like me to show me the way. I was ignorant and arrogant and persistent and the writing left me no choice at all.9 — Octavia E. Butler

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. — Octavia E. Butler

She glanced at him. "What gods do you respect?" "None." "And why not?" "I help myself," he said. — Octavia E. Butler

Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, "simpler" time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can't read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret — Octavia E. Butler

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

His voice took on a thick silkiness to it that made her want to press her body closer. "Octavia, you are welcome to touch any part of my body you wish. Just be careful of what you start. Once I lay claim to something, or someone, I will not part with it or them willingly." - Kade Egon — Sunshine Taylor Reddick

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 to make America great again." He's had notable success with this carrot-and-stick approach. — Octavia E. Butler

I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out. — Viola Davis

Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day. — Octavia Butler

But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. — Octavia Butler

To survive
Let the past
Teach you-
Past customs,
Struggles,
Leaders and thinkers.
Let
These
Help you.
Let them inspire you,
Warn you,
Give you strength.
But beware:
God is change.
Past is past.
What was
Cannot
Come again..

To survive,
know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go. — Octavia E. Butler

Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up. — Octavia Butler

I have this theory that anything that happens to you that leaves you alive and intact can be used somewhere in your writing. — Octavia Butler

I'm not pessimistic about much of anything. — 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? — Octavia E. Butler

Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war. — Octavia E. Butler

Science fiction is not formulaic. — Octavia E. Butler

I had a long period of writing what I think of as 'save the world' novels. 'Fledgling' was a chance to play. — Octavia E. Butler

wasn't sure, when — Octavia Alrose

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. — Octavia Butler

My god," Bankole said. "This country has slipped back two hundred years." "Things were better when I was little," Emery said. "My mother always said they would get better again. Good times would come back. She said they always did. My father would shake his head and not say anything. — Octavia E. Butler

Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again." He — Octavia E. Butler

It's better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It's harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching. — Octavia E. Butler

As a kind of castaway myself, I was happy to escape into the fictional world of someone else's trouble. — Octavia E. Butler

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you. — Octavia Butler

When I was between 2 and 3 years old, I got to know my first non-human being. The non-human was a cocker spaniel named Baba. We weren't friends, Baba and I, nor enemies. He wasn't my dog. He belonged to the people my mother worked for, and he lived in the house with them and us. — Octavia E. Butler

Could she give Doro what he wanted - what she herself had wanted for so long - children who would not die? — Octavia E. Butler

Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn't say them, couldn't sort out my feelings about them, couldn't keep them bottled inside me. — Octavia E. Butler

Nope. You didn't miss much." "Somehow, I find that hard to believe." Thalia raised her shoulders in an attempt to sit up, but settled back down with a groan. Clarke gently placed a rolled-up blanket behind her. "Thanks," she muttered and surveyed Clarke for a moment before she spoke again. "Okay, what's wrong?" Clarke gave her a bemused smile. "Nothing! I'm just so happy you're feeling better." "Please. You can't hide anything from me. You know I always manage to get your secrets out of you," Thalia deadpanned. "You can start by telling me where you found the medicine." "Octavia — Kass Morgan

Let go of me." It smoothed its tentacles again. "Be grateful, Joe. I'm not going to let go of you. — Octavia E. Butler

My race and sex had a great deal more to do with what people believed I could do than with what I actually could do. — Octavia E. Butler

Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live. — Octavia E. Butler

After a few years of watching the human species make things unnecessarily difficult for itself I have little hope that it will do anything more than survive and continue its cycle of errors. — Octavia E. Butler

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. — Octavia E. Butler

You are horror and beauty in rare combination. — Octavia Butler

He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying. — Octavia E. Butler

I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing, — Octavia Butler

There are so many interesting times we could have visited. — Octavia E. Butler

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. — Octavia E. Butler

Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy. — Octavia E. Butler

While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything. — Octavia Butler

I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you. — Octavia E. Butler

Embrace diversity. Unite - Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed. — Octavia E. Butler

I'd rather see the others."
"What others?"
"The ones who make it. The ones living in freedom now."
"If any do."
"They do."
"Some say they do. It's like dying, though, and going to heaven. Nobody ever comes back to tell you about it. — Octavia E. Butler

I found that I couldn't muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we've made right here on earth. — Octavia E. Butler

If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for? — Octavia E. Butler

I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. — Octavia E. Butler

I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, ... an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive. — Octavia E. Butler

Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it. — Octavia Butler

For more than a year and a half, since meeting Athena, since coming to know Octavia and now Kali, each time I've reached into the tanks where we have brought these creatures into our world, I've longed to enter theirs. At last, in the warm embrace of the sea, breathing underwater, surrounded by the octopus's liquid world, my breath rising in silver bubbles like a song of praise, here I am. — Sy Montgomery

The Dunns must of felt this when Tracy vanished. Crazy as they are, crazy as she was, they must — Octavia E. Butler

To be silent is to be passive. — Octavia Spencer

I'm still learning how dogged people can be in denial, even when their freedom or their lives are at stake. — Octavia E. Butler

So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy. — Octavia Butler

This is the biggest lot of abolitionist trash I ever saw."
"No it isn't," I said. "That book wasn't even written until a century after slavery was abolished."
"Then why the hell are they still complaining about it? — Octavia E. Butler

The norm is white, apparently, in the view of people who see things in that way. For them, the only reason you would introduce a black character is to introduce this kind of abnormality. Usually, it's because you're telling a story about racism or at least about race. — Octavia E. Butler

People who think about time travel stories sometimes think that going back in time would be fun because you would have all the information you needed to be much more astute than the people there, when the truth is of course you wouldn't. — Octavia E. Butler

People do blame you for the things they do to you. — Octavia E. Butler

There must be good marriages somewhere, but to me, marriage had the feel of people tolerating each other, enduring each other because they were afraid to be alone or because each was a habit that the other couldn't quite break. — Octavia E. Butler

Yes," he said, "intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn't matter. — Octavia E. Butler

So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It's one I've always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down. Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn't always safe, but it's often necessary. — Octavia E. Butler

Power came the way a child came -- with agony. — Octavia E. Butler

We have, it seems, a few people who think Jarret may be just what the country needs - apart from his religious nonsense. The thing is, you can't separate Jarret from the "religious nonsense." You take Jarret and you get beatings, burnings, tarrings and featherings. They're a package. And there may be even nastier things in that package. 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. — Octavia E. Butler

Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach. — Octavia Butler

I can take a lot of pain without falling apart. I've had to learn to do that. But it was hard, today, to keep peddling and keep up with the others when just about everyone I saw made me feel worse and worse. My — Octavia E. Butler

I'm an Oscar nominee. I love saying that. Whatever happens, I'm going to sing that 'I'm an Oscar nominee' part. — Octavia Spencer

She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are. — Octavia E. Butler

he still knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people. 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? — Octavia E. Butler

I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. — Octavia E. Butler