Octavia Quotes

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

Octavia Spencer rocks. But just as a human being, she's so down-to-earth. Talk about being pleasantly surprised. You walk onto set, and she's making these jokes, and she's playing around with the cast and the crew, and she invited all to her house for a dinner party. She's just a genuinely good person. ~ Ciara Bravo

As a kind of castaway myself, I was happy to escape into the fictional world of someone else's trouble. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I'm not pessimistic about much of anything. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early. ~ Octavia Butler

Let them see that you trust them & let them solve their own problems, make their own decisions.Do that & they will commit their lives to you. Bully the, control them out of fear or malice or just for your own convenience, & after a while you'll have to spend all your time thinking for them, controlling them, & stifling their resentment. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I used to give up writing like some people would give up smoking. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black. ~ Octavia Butler

Read every day and learn from what you read. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I was not a Girl Scout, but I try to be very prepared. I triple-Spanx! ~ Octavia Spencer

Here we are - Energy, Mass, Life, Shaping life, Mind, Shaping Mind, God, Shaping God. Consider - We are born Not with purpose, But with potential. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Healer that she was, creator of medicines and poisons, binder of broken bones, comforter, could she take the remnants here and build them into a man again?

Doro looked at people, healthy or ill, and wondered what kind of young they could produce. Anyanwu looked at the sick - especially those with problems she had not seen before - and wondered whether she could defeat their disease. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing. ~ Sarah Zettel

There's an analogy I came up with once for an interviewer who asked me how much of my material was autobiographical," Octavia says. "I said that the life experience of a fiction writer is like butter in cookie dough: it's a crucial part of flavor and texture - you certainly couldn't leave it out - but if you've done it right, it can't be discerned as a separate element. There shouldn't be a place that anyone can point to and say, There--she's talking about her miscarriage, or Look--he wrote that because his wife had an affair ~ Carolyn Parkhurst

I'm very happy alone. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed someone who looked like me to show me the way. I was ignorant and arrogant and persistent and the writing left me no choice at all.9 ~ Octavia E. Butler

They don't want to hear how Octavia is different from us. They want to know how we're the same. They know what it's like to have an itch. They can imagine what it's like to be a mother. This brief encounter has changed them. Now they can identify with an octopus. They ~ Sy Montgomery

They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it. Then ~ Octavia E. Butler

After a few years of watching the human species make things unnecessarily difficult for itself I have little hope that it will do anything more than survive and continue its cycle of errors. ~ Octavia E. Butler

When I began to do a little public speaking, one of the questions I heard most often was, "What good is science fiction to Black people?" I was usually asked this by a Black person ...
What good is science fiction's thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what "everyone" is saying, doing, thinking
whoever "everyone" happens to be this year.
And what good is all this to Black people? ~ Octavia E. Butler

Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach. ~ Octavia Butler

With a disaster like global warming, it's too late to worry about when it's looming except to figure out how to adapt to it. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time. ~ Octavia Butler

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

We are all women you assure me? Then I may tell you that the very next words I read were these – 'Chloe liked Olivia …' Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women. 'Chloe liked Olivia,' I read. And then it struck me how immense a change was there. Chloe liked Olivia perhaps for the first time in literature. Cleopatra did not like Octavia. And how completely Antony and Cleopatra would have been altered had she done so! As it is, I thought, letting my mind, I am afraid, wander a little from Life's Adventure, the whole thing is simplified, conventionalized, if one dared say it, absurdly. Cleopatra's only feeling about Octavia is one of jealousy. Is she taller than I am? How does she do her hair? The play, perhaps, required no more. But how interesting it would have been if the relationship between the two women had been more complicated. All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. So much has been left out, unattempted. And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. There is an attempt at it in Diana of the Crossways. They are confidantes, of course, in Racine and the Greek tragedies. They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. ~ Virginia Woolf

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 E. Butler

why can't I do what others have done - ignore the obvious. Live a normal life. It's hard enough just to do that in this world. ~ Octavia E. Butler

My ancestors in this hemisphere were, by law, chattel slaves. In the U.S., they were chattel slaves for two and a half centuries - at least 10 generations. I used to think I knew what that meant. Now I realize that I can't begin to imagine the many terrible things that it must have done to them. How did they survive it all and keep their humanity? Certainly, they were never intended to keep it, just as we weren't. ~ Octavia E. Butler

We as women have a voice and we are decision makers in what film to see. We always support our boyfriends and husbands by going to see the male dominated films, but we don't compel them to see films with female casts. ~ Octavia Spencer

There's no narcotic like exhaustion. ~ Octavia Butler

While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything. ~ Octavia Butler

Meeting Oprah Winfrey, I cried like a baby. Meeting Steven Spielberg, I cried like a baby. Meeting Denzel Washington, I gushed like a crazy woman. If I don't get excited or star struck by someone I've been dying to meet, it's time to retire. ~ Octavia Spencer

The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I'm a character actor, this I know. And I'm getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren't many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch. ~ Octavia Spencer

My brother Keith begged to go with us as usual. He'll turn thirteen in a few days - August 14 - and the thought of waiting two more years until he's 15 must seem impossible to him. I understand. Waiting is terrible. Waiting to be older is worse than other kinds of waiting because there's nothing you can do to make it happen faster. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Science fiction, extrasensory perception, and black people are judged by the worst elements they produce. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. ~ Octavia E. Butler

in an interview Butler has stated that the meaning of the amputation is clear enough: "I couldn't really let her come all the way back. I couldn't let her return to what she was, I couldn't let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn't leave people quite whole."1 Time ~ Octavia E. Butler

Cities controlled by big companies are old hat in science fiction. My grandmother left a whole bookcase of old science fiction novels. The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped "the company." I've never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that's the way it will be. That's the way it always is. ~ Octavia E. Butler

We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things always have been. ~ Octavia E. Butler

If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for? ~ Octavia E. Butler

In small communities, she believed, people are more accountable to one another. Serious misbehavior is harder to get away with, harder even to begin when everyone who sees you knows who you are, where you live, who your family is, and whether you have any business doing what you're doing. ~ Octavia E. Butler

He could not tell her that he was angry because she did not love him. Even he could not utter such foolishness. Certainly, he did not love her. He did not love anyone except perhaps Isaac and a very few of his other children. Yet he wanted Anyanwu to be like his many other women and treat him like a god in human form, competing for his attention no matter how repugnant his latest body nor even whether he might be looking for a new body. They knew he took women almost as readily as he took men. Especially, he took women who had already given him what he wanted of them
usually several children. They served him and never thought they might be his next victims. Someone else. Not them. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Would you like a tuna-salad sandwich?'
'Yes,' God said. 'Thank you. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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

To get along with God,
Consider the consequences of your behavior.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living ~ Octavia E. Butler

Souls! When have you seen your own soul - that you're so certain you have one? ~ Octavia Butler

Let go of me." It smoothed its tentacles again. "Be grateful, Joe. I'm not going to let go of you. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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 E. Butler

I have an affinity for the law. I like looking at the small type on contracts, and if I could have afforded law school, I probably would have gone. ~ Octavia Spencer

I want to be somebody. I mean I AM somebody, I just want to be a RICH somebody ~ Octavia St. Laurent

I don't know how much of a market there is for space opera. Just because it's in the movies doesn't mean magazines are buying it. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Yes," he said, "intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn't matter. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I can change myself, but it's an effort. And it doesn't last. It's easier to do as water does: allow myself to be contained, and take on the shape of my containers. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Before Octavia was born, I used to think that love bore some relation to merit and to beauty, but now I saw that this was not so. ~ Margaret Drabble

I found that I couldn't muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we've made right here on earth. ~ Octavia E. Butler

She went to him. She adjusted, became a quieter more subdued person. She didn't kill, but she seemed to die a little. ~ Octavia E. Butler

She had learned to keep her sanity by accepting things as she found them, adapting herself to new circumstances by putting aside the old ones whose memories might overwhelm her. She ~ Octavia E. Butler

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 E. Butler

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

Racism and violence were non-existent in this world,
When people were aware to fight for identity'- Terzanelle for Octavia Estelle Butler, Poem by Marieta Maglas ~ Marieta Maglas

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery. ~ Octavia E. Butler

She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are. ~ Octavia E. Butler

I like a person who knows how to say something dark at a very dark moment. The darker the moment and the darker the comic, the better. Something that is so wrong on all levels. ~ Octavia Spencer

I was a production assistant. I saw what people who are full of themselves are like - another reason not to lose your humility! I have a mouth on me so I wasn't the best P.A. ~ Octavia Spencer

When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time - the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away. ~ Octavia E. Butler

how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn't give him power. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, and eases your mind ~ Octavia E. Butler

Peeta looks at the glass again and puts it together. "You mean this will make me puke?" My prep team laughs hysterically. "Of course, so you can keep eating," says Octavia. "I've been in there twice already. Everyone does it, or else how would you have any fun at a feast? ~ Suzanne Collins

The big talent is persistence. ~ Octavia E. Butler

But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. ~ Octavia Butler

Shyness is shit. It isn't cute or feminine or appealing. It's torment, and it's shit. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Sensible. Conservative and sensible and mature and *wrong*. Very much in character with Joanne. ~ Octavia E. Butler

It's when people begin using their religion as just a way of getting power over other people that scares me. I'm afraid that's what's going on in a lot of cases right now. When people deliberately tell lies, Creationism for instance, and pretend, "Oh, it's not really religion." I mean they know they're lying, and yet they're the religious people. There's something wrong there. ~ Octavia Butler

Bloodchild" is my pregnant man story. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow. ~ Octavia E. Butler

On distant Luna, buildings rise seven miles high; there the Sovereign Consul, Octavia au Lune, rules with her Imperators and Praetors. The Ash Lord, who made the world of Rhea cinders, is her minion. She controls the twelve Olympic Knights, legions of Peerless Scarred, and Obsidians as innumerable as the stars. ~ Pierce Brown

Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy. ~ Octavia E. Butler

In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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

Weight issues, race issues will always be there and if you allow them to get to you and you allow them to affect you then yes they affect you. But my thing is I have so many other things to worry about I can't worry about other people's perception of me. ~ Octavia Spencer

West," I said bitterly. "That's where they're doing it to the Indians instead of the blacks!"
He looked at me strangely. He had been doing that a lot lately. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Power came the way a child came -- with agony. ~ Octavia E. Butler

We give lip service to acceptance, as though acceptance were enough. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Could she give Doro what he wanted - what she herself had wanted for so long - children who would not die? ~ Octavia E. Butler

I'm starstruck everyday. The day I'm not starstruck, I'll have to retire. ~ Octavia Spencer

Most vampires I have discovered are men for some reason. I guess it's because of Dracula; people are kind of feeding off that. ~ Octavia E. Butler

MESSENGER
I didn't say free, madam. No, I didn't say that. He's bound to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA
For what favor?

MESSENGER
For the favor of sleeping in her bed.

CLEOPATRA
I am pale, Charmian.

MESSENGER
He's married to Octavia, madam.

CLEOPATRA
May you die of the worst disease! ~ William Shakespeare

Everything is so soft here,' he said, 'so easy...' 'I know ~ Octavia E. Butler

I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things. ~ Octavia E. Butler

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 E. Butler

My God doesn't love me or hate me or watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love for or loyalty to my God. My God just is. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Slavery is a long slow process of dulling. ~ Octavia Butler

There must be good marriages somewhere, but to me, marriage had the feel of people tolerating each other, enduring each other because they were afraid to be alone or because each was a habit that the other couldn't quite break. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The essentials," I answered, "are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Every character I get to play has some element of who I am, but there's no fun in playing yourself. At least, for me, there isn't. ~ Octavia Spencer

You know, bigotry isn't relevant to just the South. It never was. But I'm very grateful that I don't know what it's like from experience. ~ Octavia Spencer

You aren't flawed. I noticed even before I went to my parents that there was a wholeness to you - a strong wholeness. I don't know whether you'll be what your parents wanted you to be, but whatever you become, you'll be complete. You'll have within yourself everything you need to content yourself. Just follow what seems right to you. ~ Octavia E. Butler

A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows. ~ Octavia Butler