“Ooan?” I said. I hadn’t called it that for years. My older siblings called our parents by their names, and I had begun early to imitate them. Now, though, I was afraid. I did not want “Nikanj.” I wanted “Ooan,”… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten. — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“It’s too easy to follow bad but attractive leaders, embrace pleasurable but destructive habits, ignore looming disaster because maybe it won’t happen after all—or… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“He rubbed his head again. 'Five years is longer than it sounds. So much longer.” — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“Se sono tuoi, stabilisci tu le regole. A chi importa che cosa ne pensano i giocattoli? Spazza via l'intera famiglia di un giocattolo, poi… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
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… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“Freedom is dangerous but it's precious, too. You can't just throw it away or let it slip away. You can't sell it for bread… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn't say them, couldn't sort out my feelings about them, couldn't keep them bottled inside me.” — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“In the book of Job, God says he made everything and he knows everything so no one has any right to question what he… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“But there’s no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you.” — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“After a few years of watching the human species make things unnecessarily difficult for itself I have little hope that it will do anything… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
“Self is. Self is body and bodily perception. Self is thought, memory, belief. Self creates. Self destroys. Self learns, discovers, becomes. Self shapes. Self… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
At school I was always taller than the rest of my class, and because I was an only child, I was comfortable with adults… — Octavia E. Butler Copy Share Image
