Octavia Butler Professions : Writer Born : June 22, 1947 Died : February 24, 2006 Browse All Authors Top 109 quotes by Octavia Butler Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery. Octavia Butler tyrants liars lying Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. Octavia Butler writing attitude people All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change. Octavia Butler truth-is change god 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. Octavia Butler quails blind ignorance First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. Octavia Butler persistence inspiration writing 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. Octavia Butler letting-go best-friend friendship 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. Octavia Butler equality freedom rights All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together. Octavia Butler design struggle two We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose. Octavia Butler permit confidence climbing In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn. Octavia Butler phoenix ashes order We need the stars... We need purpose! We need the image the Destiny to take root among the stars gives us of ourselves as a purposeful, growing species. We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we're to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize and die, we need the stars.... When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness. Octavia Butler destiny fighting stars People who want to write either do it or they don't. At last I began to say that my most important talent - or habit - was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up. Octavia Butler persistence giving-up writing I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell. Octavia Butler stories wanted writing A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows. Octavia Butler shadow parent tree Drowning people Sometimes die Fighting their rescuers. Octavia Butler fighting sometimes people 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. Octavia Butler should-have home children Consider We are born Not with purpose, But with potential. Octavia Butler born purpose Be who you are and not who someone else thinks you ought to be. Octavia Butler be-who-you-are ought thinking I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining. Octavia Butler hem wall fiction 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. Octavia Butler persistence writing thinking Similar Authors Ihab Hassan writer Ingmar Bergman writer Isabella Bird writer Ivan E. Coyote writer Al Feldstein writer Bert Sugar writer All Authors
