339 Quotes by Octavia E. Butler

My characters hope for better lives.

But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical.

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

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.

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.

Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you.