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" Science fiction frees you to go anyplace and examine anything. "

Octavia E. Butler

Science Fiction

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" 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. "

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" Science fiction, extrasensory perception, and black people are judged by the worst elements they produce. "

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" I had a long period of writing what I think of as 'save the world' novels. 'Fledgling' was a chance to play. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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

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" I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten. "

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" The big talent is persistence. "

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" People who think about time travel stories sometimes think that going back in time would be fun because you would have all the information you needed to be much more astute than the people there, when the truth is of course you wouldn't. "

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" My characters hope for better lives. "

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

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" I'm very happy alone. "

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

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" I'm not pessimistic about much of anything. "

Octavia E. Butler

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

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" 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. "

Octavia E. Butler

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

Octavia E. Butler

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

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" I learned that five- and-six-year-old kids have already figured out how to be intolerant. "

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" My race and sex had a great deal more to do with what people believed I could do than with what I actually could do. "

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" With a disaster like global warming, it's too late to worry about when it's looming except to figure out how to adapt to it. "

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" I'm comfortably asocial - a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive. "

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" 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. "

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