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Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.

Octavia Butler

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Octavia Butler
Achieve
Combining
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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.
Octavia Butler
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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.
Octavia Butler
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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
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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
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I lost an arm on my last trip home.
Octavia Butler
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Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
Octavia Butler
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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.
Octavia Butler
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You are horror and beauty in rare combination.
Octavia Butler
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Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.
Octavia Butler
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A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.
Octavia Butler
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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.
Octavia Butler
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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.
Octavia Butler
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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
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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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Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
Octavia Butler
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Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers.
Octavia Butler
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Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be.
Octavia Butler
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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.
Octavia Butler
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No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
Octavia Butler
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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