Quotes from book
Parable of the Sower

Name: Parable of the Sower
Author: Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Sower is a 1993 science fiction novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler, the first in a two-book series.

“A tree cannot grow in its parents’ shadows.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 7 (p. 82)

“When it comes to strangers with guns,” I told her, “I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

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

“All struggles
Are essentially
Power struggles.
Who will rule,
Who will lead,
Who will define,
refine,
confine,
design,
Who will dominate.
All struggles
Are essentially
Power struggles,
And most
are no more intellectual
than two rams
knocking their heads together.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 8 (p. 94)

“There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower

“All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 1 (p. 3)

“The Destiny of Earthseed
Is to take root among the stars.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 7 (p. 84)

“Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn’t vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 3 (p. 27)

“Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 4 (p. 29)

“Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 10 (p. 101)

“A victim of God may,
Through learning adaption,
Become a partner of God,
A victim of God may,
Through forethought and planning,
Become a shaper of God.
Or a victim of God may,
Through shortsightedness and fear,
Remain God’s victim,
God’s plaything,
God’s prey.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 4 (p. 31)

“Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” Travis said.
“All the more reason to care about myself and others.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 18 (p. 221)

“I realize I don’t know very much. None of us knows very much. But we can all learn more. Then we can teach one another. We can stop denying reality or hoping it will go away by magic.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 5 (p. 58)

“There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 17 (p. 200)

“From what I’ve read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 19 (p. 229)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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

“The only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 143

“If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 115

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