Octavia E. Butler: Doing

Octavia E. Butler was American science fiction writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Octavia E. Butler: 214 quotes29 likes

“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 book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 392)

““I didn’t want to scare you. We don’t want to scare anyone.”
“No? Well, sometimes it’s a good thing to scare people. Sometimes fear is all that will keep them from doing stupid things.””

Octavia E. Butler book Adulthood Rites

Part II “Phoenix” chapter 15 (p. 381).
Adulthood Rites (1988)

“I can’t do it, Joachim. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. A long leash is still a leash. And Coransee will still be at the other end of it, holding on.”

Octavia E. Butler book Patternmaster

Source: Patternmaster (1976), Chapter 4 (p. 689)

““What were they saying?” Daly asked.
“They disapprove of your profession,” Doro told him.
“Heathen savages,” Daly muttered. “They’re like animals. They’re all cannibals.”
“These aren’t,” Doro said, “though some of the their neighbors are.”
“All of them,” Daly insisted. “Just give them the chance.”
Doro smiled. “Well, no doubt the missionaries will reach them eventually and teach them to practice only symbolic cannibalism.”
Daly jumped. He considered himself a pious man in spite of his work. “You shouldn’t say such things,” he whispered. “Not even you are beyond the reach of God.”
“Spare me your mythology,” Doro said, “and your righteous indignation.” Daly had been Doro’s man too long to be pampered in such matters. “At least we cannibals are honest about what we do,” Doro continued. “We don’t pretend as your slavers do to be acting for the benefit of our victims’ souls. We don’t tell ourselves we’ve caught them to teach them civilized religion.””

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 3 (p. 42)

“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.”

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

“Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.”

Octavia E. Butler

“Some of his neighbors found out what I was doing and offered him fatherly advice. It was dangerous to educate slaves, they warned. Education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery. It spoiled them for field work. The Methodist minister said it made them disobedient, made them want more than the Lord intended them to have.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred (1979), Chapter 5, “The Storm” section 13 (pp. 236-37).

“Tomas stopped and looked at the three Oankali. “Do you believe in spirits?”
“We believe in life,” Ahajas said.
“Life after death?”
Ahajas smoothed her tentacles briefly in agreement. “When I’m dead,” she said, “I will nourish other life.”
“But I mean—”
“If I died on a lifeless world, a world that could sustain some form of life if it were tenacious enough, organelles within each cell of my body would survive and evolve. In perhaps a thousand million years, that world would be as full of life as this one.”
“…it would?”
“Yes. Our ancestors have seeded a great many barren worlds that way. Nothing is more tenacious than the life we are made of. A world of life from apparent death, from dissolution. That’s what we believe in.”
“Nothing more?””

Octavia E. Butler book Imago

Ahajas became smooth enough with amusement to reflect firelight. “No, Lelka. Nothing more.”
Source: Imago (1989), Chapter II, “Exile” section 12 (pp. 662-663)

“Lilith might be strong enough now to handle troublemakers herself, but she did not want to do that unless she had to. It would not help the people become a community, and if they could not unite, nothing else they did would matter.”

Octavia E. Butler book Dawn

Part III “Nursery” chapter 1 (p. 126)
Dawn (1987)

“Are you Earthseed?
Do you believe?
Belief will not save you.
Only actions
Guided and shaped
By belief and knowledge
Will save you.
Belief
Initiates and guides action—
Or it does nothing.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 382)

“Overall, the Pox has had the effect of an installment-plan World War III. In fact, there were several small, bloody shooting wars going on around the world during the Pox. These were stupid affairs—wastes of life and treasure. They were fought, ostensibly, to defend against vicious foreign enemies. All too often, they were actually fought because inadequate leaders did not know what else to do. Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war.
Amid all this, somehow, the United States of America suffered a major, nonmilitary defeat. It lost no important war, yet it did not survive the Pox. Perhaps it simply lost sight of what it once intended to be, then blundered aimlessly until it exhausted itself.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 1 (pp. 8-9)

“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)

“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)

“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)