A biography for Octavia E. Butlerhasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day.”
“I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.”
“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”
“Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.”
“When I was between 2 and 3 years old, I got to know my first non-human being. The non-human was a cocker spaniel named Baba. We weren't friends, Baba and I, nor enemies. He wasn't my dog. He belonged to the people my mother worked for, and he lived in the house with them and us.”
“Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.”
“I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.”
“Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?”
“I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.”
“Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that's what a lot of them think science fiction is.”
“Beware:Ignorance Protects itself.IgnorancePromotes suspicion.SuspicionEngenders fear.Fear quails,Irrational and blind,Or fear looms,Defiant and closed.Blind, closed,Suspicious, afraid,IgnoranceProtects itself,And protected,Ignorance grows.”
“He rubbed his head again. 'Five years is longer than it sounds. So much longer.”
“I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.”
“Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy.”
“The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.”
“How dull it is to have people defining you.”
“I used to give up writing like some people would give up smoking.”
“My brother Keith begged to go with us as usual. He'll turn thirteen in a few days - August 14 - and the thought of waiting two more years until he's 15 must seem impossible to him. I understand. Waiting is terrible. Waiting to be older is worse than other kinds of waiting because there's nothing you can do to make it happen faster.”
“Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it.”