Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction. "

Octavia E. Butler

Group

People

Differences

Related Quotes:

" Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head? "

" Simple peck-order bullying is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world. "

" Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that's what a lot of them think science fiction is. "

Octavia E. Butler

Science

Because

" When I was between 2 and 3 years old, I got to know my first non-human being. The non-human was a cocker spaniel named Baba. We weren't friends, Baba and I, nor enemies. He wasn't my dog. He belonged to the people my mother worked for, and he lived in the house with them and us. "

" Too many writers get into that gross-'em-out factor. "

" Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy. "

Octavia E. Butler

Tend

Careful

" 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. "

" Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow. "

Octavia E. Butler

Attitude

Story

" At school I was always taller than the rest of my class, and because I was an only child, I was comfortable with adults but shy and awkward with other kids. I was quiet, bookish, and in spite of my size, hopeless at sports. In short, I was different. And even in the earliest grades, I got pounded for it. "

" Getting your writing criticized can be a lot like getting skinned, and you respond to it just as enthusiastically. "

" Most vampires I have discovered are men for some reason. I guess it's because of Dracula; people are kind of feeding off that. "

" A 10-pound sack of potatoes lasts a long time. "

" I had novels to write, so I wrote them. "

" Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. "

Octavia E. Butler

Inspirational

Create

" I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. "

" The norm is white, apparently, in the view of people who see things in that way. For them, the only reason you would introduce a black character is to introduce this kind of abnormality. Usually, it's because you're telling a story about racism or at least about race. "

" Science fiction is not formulaic. "

" My characters hope for better lives. "

" 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. "

" If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for? "

" Several years ago, when I was about to start a novel, I thought I might get some mileage out of the idea of a civilization in which people somehow felt - that is, they shared - all the pain and all the pleasure they caused one another. "

" I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do. "

" I used to give up writing like some people would give up smoking. "

" Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. "

" As a black and as a woman, I didn't think that I would really want to live in any of the eras before this, because I would inevitably be worse off. I would have spent more time struggling just to prove I was human than doing my work. "

" Tolerance, like any aspect of peace, is forever a work in progress, never completed, and, if we're as intelligent as we like to think we are, never abandoned. "

" I'm very happy alone. "

" Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don't like to write and as little fun. "

Octavia E. Butler

Difficult

People

" The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life. "

" The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through. "