Octavia E. Butler: Quotes about people

Octavia E. Butler was American science fiction writer. Explore interesting quotes on people.
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)

“We’ve also been laughed at, argued with, booed, and threatened with hellfire—or gunfire. But Jarret’s kind of religion and Jarret himself are getting less and less popular these days. Both, it seems, are bad for business, bad for the U. S. Constitution, and bad for a large percentage of the population. They always have been, but now more and more people are willing to say so in public. The Crusaders have terrorized some people into silence, but they’ve just made others very angry.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 21 (p. 430)

“No one thought about what kind of society we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wasting their tax money, educating other people’s children. They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn’t hurt them!”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 404)

“So he had locked her in the closet. Some of his people, ignorant and fearful, could not quite believe her illness was not contagious. Badger locked her away from them for her own safety. She had seen for herself how eager they were to get her out of their sight.”

Octavia E. Butler book Clay's Ark

Source: Clay's Ark (1984), Chapter 28 (p. 609)

“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

“Drowning people
Sometimes die
Fighting their rescuers.”

Octavia E. Butler

“Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred

“In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed

“Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed

““I’m not a demagogue.”
“That’s too bad. That leaves the field to people who are demagogues—to the Jarrets of the world. And there have always been Jarrets. Probably there always will be.””

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 20 (p. 395).

“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 E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 5 (p. 90)

“If you don’t care about my people, why should I care about yours?”

Octavia E. Butler book Adulthood Rites

Part II “Phoenix” chapter 15 (p. 383)
Adulthood Rites (1988)

“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)

“Short-lived people, people who could die, did not know what enemies loneliness and boredom could be.”

Octavia E. Butler Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 6 (p. 100)

“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)

“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)

“You tend to resent people you’re afraid of.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 291

“It’s better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 65