Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavia Butler
Valuable
Start
Stuff
Better
Writing
Gradually
Good
Traits
Thinking
Persistence
Crap

More quotes by Octavia Butler

Image
And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy.
Octavia Butler
Image
A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.
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
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
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.
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
He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.
Octavia Butler
Image
The differences you perceive between Humans-between groups of Humans-are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments
Octavia Butler
Image
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
Image
I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
Octavia Butler
Image
I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. Im trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.
Octavia Butler
Image
Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.
Octavia Butler
Image
Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God. Earthseed: The Books of the Living Lauren Oya Olamina
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
Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
Octavia Butler
Image
There's no narcotic like exhaustion.
Octavia Butler
Image
We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.
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
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Octavia Butler
Image
Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers.
Octavia Butler