Welcome to the world of Octavia E. Butler, a visionary author whose works have left an indelible mark on the realms of science fiction and speculative fiction. Born in 1947, Butler defied societal norms and expectations, becoming one of the most celebrated African American women in the genre. Her writing skillfully weaves together complex narratives that explore themes of race, gender, power, and humanity’s relationship with the unknown.
Butler’s unique perspective and imaginative storytelling have earned her numerous accolades, including the prestigious Hugo and Nebula Awards. Through her groundbreaking novels such as Kindred, Parable of the Sower, and Dawn, she challenged readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the past, present, and future of our society. Butler’s keen insights into the human condition continue to resonate with readers around the globe, inspiring new generations of writers and thinkers to push the boundaries of imagination and empathy.
Below, you’ll find a collection of Octavia E. Butler quotes that capture the essence of her wisdom and vision. Feel free to explore these quotes, whether you choose to reflect on them, share them with others, or use them as inspiration for your own creative endeavors.
On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Not everyone has been a bully or the victim of bullies, but everyone has seen bullying, and seeing it, has responded to it by joining in or objecting, by laughing or keeping silent, by feeling disgusted or feeling interested. Octavia E. Butler
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
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 E. Butler
I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell. Octavia E. Butler
I had a long period of writing what I think of as ‘save the world’ novels. ‘Fledgling’ was a chance to play. Octavia E. Butler
Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. Octavia E. Butler
I used to give up writing like some people would give up smoking. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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 E. Butler
My characters hope for better lives. Octavia E. Butler
Too many writers get into that gross-’em-out factor. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
How dull it is to have people defining you. Octavia E. Butler
The thing about science fiction is that it’s totally wide open. But it’s wide open in a conditional way. Octavia E. Butler
If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for? Octavia E. Butler
Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it. Octavia E. Butler
Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere. Octavia E. Butler
I learned that five- and-six-year-old kids have already figured out how to be intolerant. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Science fiction frees you to go anyplace and examine anything. Octavia E. Butler
I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. Octavia E. Butler
Most vampires I have discovered are men for some reason. I guess it’s because of Dracula; people are kind of feeding off that. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time – the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away. Octavia E. Butler
Most of us don’t have to worry about being shot if 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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
Most of us, if we’re not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy. Octavia E. Butler
The big talent is persistence. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
Getting your writing criticized can be a lot like getting skinned, and you respond to it just as enthusiastically. Octavia E. Butler
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
A 10-pound sack of potatoes lasts a long time. Octavia E. Butler
We are a naturally hierarchical species. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Science fiction, extrasensory perception, and black people are judged by the worst elements they produce. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them. Octavia E. Butler
No… a novel is a long business. I’m a slow writer, even when I’m doing very well I write slowly. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical. Octavia E. Butler
I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
I would never have been a good scientist – my attention span was too short for that. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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 E. Butler
I had novels to write, so I wrote them. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it’s all in your head? Octavia E. Butler
Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that’s what a lot of them think science fiction is. Octavia E. Butler
I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children’s stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, ‘Can’t you write anything normal?’ Octavia E. Butler
I think people really need to think what it’s like to have all of society arrayed against you. Octavia E. Butler
I don’t know how much of a market there is for space opera. Just because it’s in the movies doesn’t mean magazines are buying it. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. Octavia E. Butler
I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early. Octavia E. Butler
I have a huge and savage conscience that won’t let me get away with things. Octavia E. Butler
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 E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
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. Octavia E. Butler
Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don’t like to write and as little fun. Octavia E. Butler
So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy. Octavia E. Butler
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
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 E. Butler
I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership. Octavia E. Butler
I’m not pessimistic about much of anything. Octavia E. Butler
I’m very happy alone. Octavia E. Butler
Science fiction is not formulaic. Octavia E. Butler
