Octavia E Butler Quotes

Octavia Estelle Butler (1947-2006)

Octavia E. Butler was an American science fiction author. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she became in 1995 the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. (Octavia E Butler Quotes)

“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change
Octavia E. Butler

“Better to stay alive,” I said. “At least while there’s a chance to get free.” I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.”
Octavia E. Butler

“Civilization is the way one’s own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.”
Octavia E. Butler

“Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”
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

“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. You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
Octavia E. Butler

“Freedom is dangerous 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 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

“I wasn’t trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.”
Octavia E. Butler

“If you want a thing–truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible”
Octavia E. Butler

“In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.”
Octavia E. Butler

“In order to rise from its own ashes a phoenix first must Burn.”
Octavia E. Butler

“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.”
Octavia E. Butler

“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn’t bother me. It’s other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
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

“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of “wrong” ideas.”
Octavia E. Butler

“The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.”
Octavia E. Butler

“The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.”
Octavia E. Butler

“There is no end to what a living world will demand of you.”
Octavia E. Butler

“There is no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you.”
Octavia E. Butler

“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”
Octavia E. Butler

“They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.”
Octavia E. Butler

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.”
Octavia E. Butler

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
Octavia E. Butler