Quote

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.

Octavia Butler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavia Butler
Couldn
Since
Witted
Black
Feeble
Found
Occasional
Character
Anyway
Anything
Manage
Writing
Wrote
People
Characters

More quotes by Octavia Butler

Image
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
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
The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.
Octavia Butler
Image
I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.
Octavia Butler
Image
Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
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
But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical.
Octavia Butler
Image
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
Image
Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.
Octavia Butler
Image
I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.
Octavia Butler
Image
Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
Octavia Butler
Image
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
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
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
Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.
Octavia Butler
Image
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
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
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
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