Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Octavia Butler
Writing
Definitely
Good
Possibility
People
Outside
Comfortable
Inside
Poke
Worry
Noses
Stills
Shot
Still
Shots

More quotes by 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
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
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
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
He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.
Octavia Butler
Image
I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.
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
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.
Octavia Butler
Image
I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
Octavia Butler
Image
People who want to write either do it or they don't. At last I began to say that my most important talent - or habit - was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.
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
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
I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
Octavia Butler
Image
I lost an arm on my last trip home.
Octavia Butler
Image
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
Octavia Butler
Image
But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical.
Octavia Butler
Image
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
Octavia Butler
Image
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.
Octavia Butler
Image
There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
Octavia Butler
Image
Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.
Octavia Butler