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… — Octavia Butler Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way. — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
Life is getting better, but that won't stop a war if politicians and business people decide it's to their advantage to have one. — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
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… — Octavia Butler Copy Share 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… — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
“In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn. Earthseed: The Books of the Living Lauren Oya Olamina” — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
Most of what I do is science fiction. Some of the things I do are fantasy. I don't like the labels, they're marketing tools, and I certainly don't worry about them when I'm writing. They are also inhibiting factors; you wind up not getting read by certain people, or not getting sold to certain people because they think they know… — Octavia Butler Copy Share
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… — Octavia Butler Copy Share Image
