Top 100 Octavia's Quotes
#1. Drift House: Susan's response to Queen Octavia's sarcasm in regards to fading memories ... "But we pass our memories on," she insisted. "I mean, from one generation to the next. Parents teach their children. They write things down, tell them stories
Dale Peck
#2. It's meant to be pretty," whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes.
Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, "I think you'd be pretty in any color."
The tiniest of smiles forms on Octavia's lips. "Thank you.
Suzanne Collins
#3. A victim of God may, Through learning adaption, Become a partner of God, A victim of God may, Through forethought and planning, Become a shaper of God. Or a victim of God may, Through shortsightedness and fear, Remain God's victim, God's plaything, God's prey.
Octavia Butler
#4. Shyness is shit. It isn't cute or feminine or appealing. It's torment, and it's shit.
Octavia E. Butler
#5. As a kind of castaway myself, I was happy to escape into the fictional world of someone else's trouble.
Octavia E. Butler
#6. 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
#7. You want to know how moral she is?" His tone made me frown. "What do you mean?" "If she chases me any harder, she and I will wind up playing a scene from that Bible she reads. The scene between Potiphar's wife and Joseph.
Octavia E. Butler
#8. I think it's actually a misperception that I am a comedic actress. I do more drama than comedy but very little of it has been seen. When you are in big funny movies and they do well and your little part in it kind of explodes people perceive you as a comedian.
Octavia Spencer
#9. The fact that women are very young in obtaining their civil rights and African-Americans are young in obtaining their civil rights, I think it's about time that we extend that to all Americans, whether straight, gay, purple, green, black, brown.
Octavia Spencer
#10. I can change myself, but it's an effort. And it doesn't last. It's easier to do as water does: allow myself to be contained, and take on the shape of my containers.
Octavia E. Butler
#11. Daddy's the only man I know," he said softly, "who cares as much about giving his word to a black as to a white.
Octavia E. Butler
#12. Then Octavia drops to her knees, rubs the hem of a skirt against her cheek, and burst into tears. "It's been so long," she gasps, "since I've seen anything pretty.
Suzanne Collins
#13. 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 Butler
#14. Religion is a dangerous prod, because it can always be misused and get out of hand, but it's useful for keeping people on the straight and narrow.
Octavia Butler
#15. Weight issues, race issues will always be there and if you allow them to get to you and you allow them to affect you then yes they affect you. But my thing is I have so many other things to worry about I can't worry about other people's perception of me.
Octavia Spencer
#16. I think only one thing.
Where 's Octavia?
As I get closer to the bottom, I notice that it's water that I'm falling into. It's salty-green and smooth, until ...
I'm driven through the surface and go deeper. I'm surrounded.
I'm drowning. I think. I'm drowning.
But I'm smiling too.
Markus Zusak
#17. 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
#18. 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
#19. 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
#20. Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that's what a lot of them think science fiction is.
Octavia E. Butler
#21. They don't want to hear how Octavia is different from us. They want to know how we're the same. They know what it's like to have an itch. They can imagine what it's like to be a mother. This brief encounter has changed them. Now they can identify with an octopus. They
Sy Montgomery
#22. 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.
Octavia E. Butler
#23. 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
#24. I'm Valerie Rye,' she said, savoring the words. 'It's all right for you to talk to me.
Octavia E. Butler
#25. Every character I get to play has some element of who I am, but there's no fun in playing yourself. At least, for me, there isn't.
Octavia Spencer
#26. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.
Octavia E. Butler
#27. Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?
Octavia E. Butler
#28. I'd rather see the others."
"What others?"
"The ones who make it. The ones living in freedom now."
"If any do."
"They do."
"Some say they do. It's like dying, though, and going to heaven. Nobody ever comes back to tell you about it.
Octavia E. Butler
#29. As you make your way along life's tumultuous highways, it's important to note that you should always carry a map, have plenty of fuel in the tank, and take frequent rest stops.
Octavia Spencer
#30. 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
#31. Life is getting better, but that won't stop a war if politicians and business people decide it's to their advantage to have one.
Octavia Butler
#32. Or it's happening because Shori is black, and racists - probably Ina racists - don't like the idea that a good part of the answer to your daytime problems is melanin.
Octavia E. Butler
#33. That's all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don't know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times.
Octavia E. Butler
#34. Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, and eases your mind
Octavia E. Butler
#35. I like to read Octavia E. Butler's 'Wild Seed' over and over again. And J. California Cooper's 'The Wake of the Wind.' That one makes me cry from joy. I'll mourn - I'll actually mourn - and then I'll cry from joy. She's wonderful.
Jill Scott
#36. I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you.
Octavia E. Butler
#37. Freedom is dangerous but it's precious, too. You can't just throw it away or let it slip away. You can't sell it for bread and pottage.
Octavia E. Butler
#38. You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny, and hope that whatever your art is that you're putting out there, if it's received, great, I respect you for receiving it. If it's not received, great, I respect you for not.
Octavia Spencer
#39. If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.
Octavia Butler
#40. Akin rested his chin on Iriarte's shoulder and savored the strange pale scents - all pale now.
Octavia E. Butler
#41. Octavia Butler often described herself as an outsider, but within science fiction, she was loved as an insider, someone who was a fan first and came to S.F. writing as an enthusiastic reader.
Karen Joy Fowler
#42. The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.
Octavia Butler
#43. 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
#44. 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 Butler
#45. Meeting Oprah Winfrey, I cried like a baby. Meeting Steven Spielberg, I cried like a baby. Meeting Denzel Washington, I gushed like a crazy woman. If I don't get excited or star struck by someone I've been dying to meet, it's time to retire.
Octavia Spencer
#46. 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 Butler
#47. Christian Louboutin, I love you, but honey, please! But when you have this much weight, you've got to give us a little platform. Sorry! The shoes are stunning though. An ounce of pain, it's worth it.
Octavia Spencer
#48. The one thing that I realize - well, not the one thing, but it was a big thing - having in my head that I need to get healthier. It's been a very gradual process for me.
Octavia Spencer
#49. Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.
Octavia E. Butler
#50. 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
#51. 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 Butler
#52. Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
Octavia Butler
#53. You know, bigotry isn't relevant to just the South. It never was. But I'm very grateful that I don't know what it's like from experience.
Octavia Spencer
#54. Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.
Octavia Butler
#56. 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.
Octavia E. Butler
#57. 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
#58. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.
Octavia Butler
#59. no one had been able to give him a reason why people who had excellent reasons to suppose they would destroy themselves if they did a certain thing chose to do that thing anyway.
Octavia E. Butler
#60. I was always a closet lover of acting. My mom was very practical. She never, ever restricted our dreams, always told us we could do or be anything. Then I said, 'Maybe I want to be an actor'. And she said, 'Maybe not that'.
Octavia Spencer
#61. These things frighten people. It's best not to talk about them." "But, Dad, that's like ... like ignoring a fire in the living room because we're all in the kitchen, and, besides, house fires are too scary to talk about.
Octavia E. Butler
#62. My god," Bankole said. "This country has slipped back two hundred years." "Things were better when I was little," Emery said. "My mother always said they would get better again. Good times would come back. She said they always did. My father would shake his head and not say anything.
Octavia E. Butler
#63. 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 Butler
#64. 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 Butler
#65. to be aware of a place where blackness was not a mark of slavery.
Octavia E. Butler
#66. You controlled both animals and people by controlling their reproduction - controlling it absolutely.
Octavia E. Butler
#67. Let's just say that I have a tendency if I am uncomfortable in a situation to speak my mind.
Octavia Spencer
#68. Mars is a rock - cold, empty, almost airless, dead. Yet it's heaven in a way. We can see it in the night sky, a whole other world, but too nearby, too close within the reach of the people who've made such a hell of life here on Earth.
Octavia E. Butler
#69. I'm an Oscar nominee. I love saying that. Whatever happens, I'm going to sing that 'I'm an Oscar nominee' part.
Octavia Spencer
#70. 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 Butler
#71. Let go of me." It smoothed its tentacles again. "Be grateful, Joe. I'm not going to let go of you.
Octavia E. Butler
#73. If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for?
Octavia E. Butler
#74. 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
#75. In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.
Octavia E. Butler
#76. 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 Butler
#77. I used to give up writing like some people would give up smoking.
Octavia E. Butler
#78. why can't I do what others have done - ignore the obvious. Live a normal life. It's hard enough just to do that in this world.
Octavia E. Butler
#79. Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve.
Octavia E. Butler
#80. And then Alec had a providient thought. "D'you want my sister?"
"Octavia!" Hugh gasped at him. "isn't she twelve?"
"She's nineteen."
"I can't marry her. I'd keep picturing her as twelve.
Julia Quinn
#81. I think if I weren't so squeamish, I would have been some sort of forensic analyst. And I can't do anything with a microscope, because then I start thinking about the world of germs around us.
Octavia Spencer
#82. I prefer doing interviews where people don't have to interpret what you say. I'm going to be real honest.
Octavia Spencer
#84. Was it possible that Octavia had misjudged her?
What was he thinking? Of course, it was possible. Octavia was a dear, but she was nineteen years old and thinking of Octavia. The last thing she wanted in her life was a staggeringly beautiful rival who was not conveniently evil.
Julia Quinn
#85. One thing I've learned is be comfortable in your skin, and more importantly, be comfortable in your shoes.
Octavia Spencer
#86. Would you like a tuna-salad sandwich?'
'Yes,' God said. 'Thank you.
Octavia E. Butler
#87. No ... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
Octavia Butler
#88. What are you?" I whispered."What are we to you?"
She lay still, rested her head on her topmost coil. "You know me as no other does," she said softly. "You must decide.
Octavia E. Butler
#89. Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.
Octavia E. Butler
#90. Nothing. It just finds you a lot more attractive than it does most Humans. What can you do with a beautiful woman that you can't do with an ugly one? Nothing. It's just a matter of preference.
Octavia E. Butler
#91. 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
#93. I was starstruck and sweat a lot when I met Oprah Winfrey and tried to hug her. Because when you think you know people when you see them from your couch.
Octavia Spencer
#94. She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are.
Octavia E. Butler
#95. The differences you perceive between Humans - between groups of Humans - are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments
Octavia E. Butler
#96. Now I want to work with Octavia Spencer, because I met her and she's really funny.
Isabelle Fuhrman
#97. Rejections are painful, but inevitable. They're every writer's rite of passage.
Octavia Butler
#98. Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.
Octavia Butler
#99. My relative examined you, observed a few of your normal body cells, compared them with what it had learned from other humans most like you, and said that you had not only a cancer, but a talent for cancer.
Octavia E. Butler
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