Octavia Butler Quotes

1947–2006 United States

Octavia E. Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer, one of the very few African-American women in the field.

United States
Authors
Feminists
Novelists
Science fiction authors

Also known as: Octavia E. Butler

Random Octavia Butler quote

68 quotes

She found more gratification in teaching one willing student than a dozen resentful ones.

Dawn (1987)

“Yori, Human purpose isn’t what you say it is or what I say it is. It’s what your biology says it is—what your genes say it is.”

Adulthood Rites (1988)

Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.

Imago (1989)

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.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

“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.”

Parable of the Talents (1998)

How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.

Parable of the Talents (1998)

Sometimes I write to keep from going crazy. There’s a world of things I don’t feel free to talk to anyone about.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own.

Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

Consider—
We are born
Not with purpose,
But with potential.

Parable of the Talents (1998)

That is the most unromantic declaration of love I’ve ever heard. Or is that what you’re saying? Do you love me, Shori, or do I just taste good?

Fledgling (2005)

A tree
Cannot grow
In its parents’ shadows.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

She was too alert, too alive not to have the kind of mind that probed and reached and got her into trouble now and then.

Wild Seed (1980)

Shyness is shit. It isn’t cute or feminine or appealing. It’s torment, and it’s shit.

I got up to leave. There was nothing more to be said. He had asked for what he knew I could not give, and I had refused.

Kindred (1979)

“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.”

Adulthood Rites (1988)

My ignorance wasn’t just annoying. It was dangerous.

Fledgling (2005)

Humans were genetically inclined to be intolerant of difference. They could overcome the inclination, but it was a reality of the Human conflict that they often did not.

Imago (1989)

There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

They had clearly feared turn-of-the-century irrationality—religious overzealousness on one side, destructive hedonism on the other, with both heated by ideological intolerance and corporate greed.

Clay's Ark (1984)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Octavia Butler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.