Octavia E. Butler Quotes

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.

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

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.

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.

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.

In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.

God is Change.

Earthseed: The Books of the Living
Lauren Oya Olamina

There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.

Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve.

It's better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It's harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching.

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.

All that you touch, you change. All that you change,
changes you.

Kindness eases change
Love quiets fear

Power came the way a child came - with agony.

Bloodchild" is my pregnant man story.