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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

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Octavia Butler
Wasn
Feel
Ancestry
Feels
Threw
Trying
Psychological
Work
Slavery
Kind
Stones
People
Across
Emotional

More quotes by Octavia Butler

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And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.
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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.
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I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
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There's no narcotic like exhaustion.
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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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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.
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We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.
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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. And once you did understand them, the Humans got angry and acted as though you had stolen thoughts from their minds.
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Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
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A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.
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The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.
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Belief initiates and guides action - or it does nothing.
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There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
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I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
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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.
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I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.
Octavia Butler