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Quotes from Parable of the Sower — Octavia Butler

1947–2006 United States

← All quotes by Octavia Butler

19 quotes

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

You tend to resent people you’re afraid of.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back’

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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)

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)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

A tree
Cannot grow
In its parents’ shadows.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

People here in the neighborhood are saying she had no business going to Mars, anyway. All that money wasted on another crazy space trip when so many people here on earth can’t afford water, food, or shelter

Parable of the Sower (1993)

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.

Parable of the Sower (1993)

Attribution

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