Quote

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

Octavia Butler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavia Butler
Knew
Tell
Stories
Wanted
Writing

More quotes by Octavia Butler

Image
Most of us don't have to worry about being shot of we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility.
Octavia Butler
Image
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 Butler
Image
Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish.
Octavia Butler
Image
No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
Octavia Butler
Image
On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that.
Octavia Butler
Image
Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers.
Octavia Butler
Image
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
Image
I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
Octavia Butler
Image
A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't.
Octavia Butler
Image
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Octavia Butler
Image
All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.
Octavia Butler
Image
I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing.
Octavia Butler
Image
I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
Octavia Butler
Image
Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.
Octavia Butler
Image
Beware At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease
Octavia Butler
Image
Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.
Octavia Butler
Image
He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.
Octavia Butler
Image
Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
Octavia Butler
Image
Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.
Octavia Butler
Image
Belief initiates and guides action - or it does nothing.
Octavia Butler