Octavia Butler Quotes

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

Friendship, Time, Art

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.
Octavia Butler

Writing, Rather, Easy

Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish.
Octavia Butler

Religion, Hope, Jesus

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

Good, Writing, Thinking

I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
Octavia Butler

Fact, Conscience, Early

And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy.
Octavia Butler

Science, Wanted, Point

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.
Octavia Butler

Leadership, Different, Attention

Most of us don't have to worry about being shot of we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility.
Octavia Butler

Good, Writing, Worry

No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities.
Octavia Butler

Future, Past, Human

Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day.
Octavia Butler

Work, Actually, Sit

What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way.
Octavia Butler

Science, Someone, Working

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.
Octavia Butler

Yourself, Writing, Few

A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't.
Octavia Butler

Young, Easy, Fact

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

Problem, Sometimes, Problems

Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.
Octavia Butler

Science, Writing, Learn

Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
Octavia Butler

Fun, Here, Wanted

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

Time, Science, Writing

I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.
Octavia Butler

Away, Conscience, Won

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.
Octavia Butler

Wanted, Tell, Knew

I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black.
Octavia Butler

Family, Time, Experience

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

Science, Human, Able

I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.
Octavia Butler

Work, Emotional, Trying

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
Octavia Butler

Good, Short, Attention

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.
Octavia Butler

Science, Writing, Stop

No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
Octavia Butler

Business, Long, Write

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Writer

Born: June 22, 1947

Died: February 24, 2006

Links

Find on Amazon: Octavia Butler

Cite this Page: Citation

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