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Octavia E. Butler: 214 quotes29 likes

“You’re bright,” Lupe said to her softly. “Very bright, but stubborn. You think you can choose your realities. You can’t.”

Octavia E. Butler book Clay's Ark

Source: Clay's Ark (1984), Chapter 12 (p. 522)

“Freedom is dangerous, Cory, but it’s precious, too. You can’t just throw it away or let it slip away. You can’t sell it for bread and pottage.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 11 (p. 122)

“We were snatched away and given alone into the hands of people who believed that it was their duty to break us and remake us in the Christian American image. And, of course, breaking people is much easier than putting them together again.
So much agony caused, so much evil done in God’s name.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 15 (p. 288)

“I’m literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 405)

“Now I have been raped.
It happened twice. Once on Monday, and again yesterday. It is my Christmas gift from Christian America.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 13 (p. 253)

““He’s a fair man.”
I looked at him, startled.
“I said fair,” he repeated. “Not likable.”
I kept quiet. His father wasn’t the monster he could have been with the power he held over his slaves. He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred (1979), Chapter 4, “The Fight” section 6 (p. 134).

“What will they do when they have only the herbs” he asked her.
“Live or die as best they can,” she said. “Everything truly alive dies sooner or later.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 14 (p. 247)

“A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of superperson. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

“He thought about that for a moment, wondered what he should say. The truth or nothing. The truth.”

Octavia E. Butler book Adulthood Rites

Part IV “Home” chapter 5 (p. 501)
Adulthood Rites (1988)

““It was an old passion,” he said. “I haven’t touched a violin for months. I didn’t know what that would be like.”
“What is it like?” she asked.
He began to walk so that she almost missed his answer. “An amputation,” he whispered.”

Octavia E. Butler book Clay's Ark

Source: Clay's Ark (1984), Chapter 14 (p. 533)

“She glanced at him. “What gods do you respect?”
“None.”
“And why not?”
“I help myself,” he said.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 1 (p. 20)

“I got up to leave. There was nothing more to be said. He had asked for what he knew I could not give, and I had refused.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred (1979), Chapter 6, “The Rope” section 4 (p. 257).

“She found more gratification in teaching one willing student than a dozen resentful ones.”

Octavia E. Butler book Dawn

Part IV “The Training Floor” chapter 9 (p. 242)
Dawn (1987)

“We can see that our Councils aren’t games like the tribunals humans have. The work of a Council of Judgment is to learn the truth and then decide what to do about it within our law. It isn’t about following laws so strictly that the guilty go unpunished or the innocent are made to suffer. It isn’t about protecting everyone’s rights. It’s about finding the truth, period, and then deciding what to do about it.”

Octavia E. Butler Fledgling

Source: Fledgling (2005), Chapter 21 (p. 220)

“My ignorance wasn’t just annoying. It was dangerous.”

Octavia E. Butler Fledgling

Source: Fledgling (2005), Chapter 13 (p. 126)

“You're truly free for the first time. What could be more difficult than that?”

Octavia E. Butler book Bloodchild and Other Stories

The Book of Martha
Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

“They can create something beautiful, useful, even something worthless. But they create. They don't destroy.”

Octavia E. Butler book Bloodchild and Other Stories

The Evening and the Morning and the Night
Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

“Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own.”

Octavia E. Butler book Bloodchild and Other Stories

Bloodchild
Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

“Don’t you know everything? God smiled. “No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can’t imagine how boring it was.””

Octavia E. Butler book Bloodchild and Other Stories

The Book of Martha
Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

“I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 316