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I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.

Octavia Butler

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Octavia Butler
Never
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Span
Scientist
Short
Attention
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More quotes by Octavia Butler

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No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
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I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.
Octavia Butler
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The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing.
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Belief initiates and guides action - or it does nothing.
Octavia Butler
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There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
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Not everyone has been a bully or the victim of bullies, but everyone has seen bullying, and seeing it, has responded to it by joining in or objecting, by laughing or keeping silent, by feeling disgusted or feeling interested.
Octavia Butler
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If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.
Octavia Butler
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We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life.
Octavia Butler
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Religion is a dangerous prod, because it can always be misused and get out of hand, but it's useful for keeping people on the straight and narrow.
Octavia Butler
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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 Butler
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To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
Octavia Butler
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I'm me, and I'm here, and I'm writing.
Octavia Butler
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I think climbing mountains or buildings or whatever has been a really good metaphor for finishing my work. Because no matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can't possibly do this, somehow you do.
Octavia Butler
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Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.
Octavia Butler
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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
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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
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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
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I lost an arm on my last trip home.
Octavia Butler
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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 Butler
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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