Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butlerwas an American science fiction writer. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the "Genius Grant."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 June 1947
CityPasadena, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Octavia Butler quotes about
demands mind work
I have the kind of mind that demands that I work things out, to see how they would really work if they were real. I have to be able to do that.
books call cautionary clearly direction save series serve type wrote
While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything.
freedom equality people
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.
writing stories wanted
I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.
friendship letting-go art
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.
ignorance blind quails
Beware: Ignorance Protects itself. Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.
fighting people sometimes
Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers.
kindness ease
Kindness eases change Love quiets fear
phoenix order firsts
In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn.
writing persistence thinking
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
children home should-have
The child in each of us Knows paradise. Paradise is home. Home as it was Or home as it should have been. Paradise is one's own place, One's own people, One's own world, Knowing and known, Perhaps even Loving and loved. Yet every child Is cast from paradise- Into growth and new community, Into vast, ongoing Change.
hunger
That which could hunger, could starve.
rage choke
When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.
ambition years oil
I'm a 48-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Los Angeles -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.