339 Quotes by Octavia E. Butler

She wasn’t writing romance or feel-good novels,” mystery author Walter Mosley said. “She was writing very difficult, brilliant work.

We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.

Human beings fear difference,” Lilith had told him once. “Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it. They need it to keep themselves from stagnation and overspecialization.

The essentials,” I answered, “are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny.

I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.

We give lip service to acceptance, as though acceptance were enough. Then we go on to create super-people – super-parents, super-kings, and queens, super-cops – to be our gods and to look after us – to stand between us and God. Yet God has been here all along, shaping us and being shaped by us in no particular way or in too many ways at once like an amoeba – or like a cancer. Chaos.

Gather information. Seek weakness. Watch, wait, and do what you have to to stay alive!

Consider: Whether you’re a human being, an insect, a microbe, or a stone, this verse is true. All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change.

Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, and eases your mind.