Top 200 Octavia E. Butler Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “When I was older, I decided that getting a rejection slip was like being told your child was ugly. You got mad and didn’t believe a word of it. Besides, look at all the really ugly literary children out there in the world being published and doing fine!”

— Octavia E. Butler

152. “Power came the way a child came – with agony.”

— Octavia E. Butler

153. “Is a pea cut in half one wounded thing or two?”

— Octavia E. Butler

154. “From what I’ve read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

— Octavia E. Butler

155. “There are so many interesting times we could have visited.”

— Octavia E. Butler

156. “I might not have believed this if a Human had said it. Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everyone had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant. And once we did understand them, the Humans got angry and acted as though we had stolen thoughts from their minds.”

— Octavia E. Butler

157. “The thing is, we hear gunfire so much that we don’t hear it.”

— Octavia E. Butler

158. “Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”

— Octavia E. Butler

159. “Akin rested his chin on Iriarte’s shoulder and savored the strange pale scents – all pale now.”

— Octavia E. Butler

160. “It seems inevitable that people who can’t read are going to lean more toward judging candidates on the way they look and sound than on what they claim they stand for. Even people who can read and are educated are apt to pay more attention to good looks and seductive lies than they should. And no doubt the new picture ballots on the nets will give Jarret an even greater advantage.”

— Octavia E. Butler

161. “We’re survivors, Len. You are. I am. Most of Georgetown is. All of Acorn was. We’ve been slammed around in all kinds of ways. We’re all wounded. We’re healing as best we can. And, no, we’re not normal. Normal people wouldn’t have survived what we’ve survived. If we were normal we’d be dead.”

— Octavia E. Butler

162. “Praying makes people feel better even when there’s no action they can take,” he said. “I used to think that was all God was good for – to help people like my mother stand what they had to stand.”

— Octavia E. Butler

163. “God is Change And hidden within Change Is surprise, delight, Confusion, pain, Discovery, loss, Opportunity, and growth. As always, God exists To shape And to be shaped.”

— Octavia E. Butler

164. “Twenty-five or thirty words are supposed to be enough in a news bullet to explain either a war or an unusual set of Christmas lights. Bullets are cheap and full of big dramatic pictures. Some bullets are true virtuals that allow people to experience – safely – hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and mass murder. Hell of a kick.”

— Octavia E. Butler

165. “A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in a kind of super-person. A few believe God is another word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just about anything they happen not to understand or feel in control of.”

— Octavia E. Butler

166. “Clay was slowly deciding to kill himself. It was slow because, in spite of everything Clay did not want to die. He was just becoming less and less able to tolerate the pain of living.”

— Octavia E. Butler

167. “Twenty-five or thirty words are supposed to be enough in a news bullet to explain either a war or an unusual set of Christmas lights.”

— Octavia E. Butler

168. “His mistake was in seeing her as a young girl. She was already a missile, armed and targeted.”

— Octavia E. Butler

169. “I can’t unfind you,” he said.”

— Octavia E. Butler

170. “Grief was grief, she thought. It was pain and loss and despair – an abrupt end where there should have been a continuing.”

— Octavia E. Butler

171. “But if all I had to look forward to was marriage to him and babies and poverty that just keeps getting worse, I think I’d kill myself.”

— Octavia E. Butler

172. “Gather information. Seek weakness. Watch, wait, and do what you have to to stay alive!”

— Octavia E. Butler

173. “I’m sorry that astronaut will be brought back from her own chosen heaven.”

— Octavia E. Butler

174. “Once he’s made everyone who isn’t like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn’t cause. That’s easier than trying to fix the problems.”

— Octavia E. Butler

175. “As a country, we’ve given up our birthright for even less than bread and pottage. We’ve given it up for nothing – although I’m sure some people somewhere are richer now.”

— Octavia E. Butler

176. “She glanced at him. “What gods do you respect?” “None.” “And why not?” “I help myself,” he said.”

— Octavia E. Butler

177. “Did she struggle for life only out of habit, or because some part of her still hoped that there was something worth living for?”

— Octavia E. Butler

178. “I sat where I was, more depressed than ever, hating the whole hopeless, stupid business and wondering whether the human species would ever grow up enough to learn to communicate without using fists of one kind or another.”

— Octavia E. Butler

179. “No one is who we think they are,” I said. “That’s what we get for not being telepathic.”

— Octavia E. Butler

180. “A leader Most will follow, Or a tyrant Most fear.”

— Octavia E. Butler

181. “Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.” He.”

— Octavia E. Butler

182. “But we can rig the game in our own favor if we understand that God exists to be shaped, and will be shaped, with or without our forethought, with or without our intent.”

— Octavia E. Butler

183. “I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.”

— Octavia E. Butler

184. “You are a good man,” she had observed contentedly. “And it has been too long since I had this.” He was surprised.”

— Octavia E. Butler

185. “I do what I can,′ I said. ‘When I can do more, I will. You know that.”

— Octavia E. Butler

186. “She wasn’t writing romance or feel-good novels,” mystery author Walter Mosley said. “She was writing very difficult, brilliant work.”

— Octavia E. Butler

187. “When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.”

— Octavia E. Butler

188. “I was always a doubter when it came to religion. How irrational of me, then, to love a zealot. But then, both love and zealotry are irrational states of mind.”

— Octavia E. Butler

189. “We’re an adaptable species,” she said, refusing to be stopped, “but it’s wrong to inflict suffering just because your victim can endure it.” “Learn.”

— Octavia E. Butler

190. “Earthseed deals with ongoing reality, not with supernatural authority figures. Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.”

— Octavia E. Butler

191. “Yes,” he said, “intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike.”

— Octavia E. Butler

192. “I’ve noticed that people who have a little bit of power tend to use it.”

— Octavia E. Butler

193. “All prayers are to Self And, in one way or another, All prayers are answered. Pray, But beware. Your desires, Whether or not you achieve them Will determine who you become.”

— Octavia E. Butler

194. “Darkness Gives shape to the light As light Shapes the darkness. Death Gives shape to life As life Shapes death. The universe And God Share this wholeness, Each Defining the other. God Gives shape to the universe As the universe Shapes God.”

— Octavia E. Butler

195. “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. Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent.”

— Octavia E. Butler

196. “Entropy, the idea that the natural flow of heat is from something hot to something cool – not the other way – so that the universe itself is cooling down, running down, dissipating its energy.”

— Octavia E. Butler

197. “In six years, she had gone from nothing to nothing.”

— Octavia E. Butler

198. “And the only way to prove to yourself you have power is to use it.”

— Octavia E. Butler

199. “The essentials,” I answered, “are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny.”

— Octavia E. Butler

200. “My memory of my aunt and uncle told me that even people who loved me could demand more of me than I could give – and expect their demands to be met simply because I owed them.”

— Octavia E. Butler