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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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Octavia Butler
People
Useful
Straight
Dangerous
Hand
Religion
Prod
Hands
Misused
Women
Narrow
Always
Keeping

More quotes by Octavia Butler

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We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life.
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Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
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Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
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I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
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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.
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Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.
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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.
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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.
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When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.
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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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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Belief initiates and guides action - or it does nothing.
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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.
Octavia Butler
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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.
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I lost an arm on my last trip home.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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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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