Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavia Butler
Frustrations
Professions
Hostility
Frustration
Profession
Paid
Public
Writing
Hostilities

More quotes by Octavia Butler

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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 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
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
Octavia Butler
Image
I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.
Octavia Butler
Image
I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.
Octavia Butler
Image
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
Octavia Butler
Image
When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.
Octavia Butler
Image
Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
Octavia Butler
Image
I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
Octavia Butler
Image
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
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
We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.
Octavia Butler
Image
Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.
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
You are horror and beauty in rare combination.
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
The child in each of us Knows paradise. Paradise is home. Home as it was Or home as it should have been. Paradise is one's own place, One's own people, One's own world, Knowing and known, Perhaps even Loving and loved. Yet every child Is cast from paradise- Into growth and new community, Into vast, ongoing Change.
Octavia Butler
Image
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