“We are a naturally hierarchical species.”
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Author detail
An American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. [Comment by Tricia Sullivan, on The Guardian][1]: Octavia E Butler (1947–2006) > I was teaching in New York when I came across Octavia E Butler's Kindred in a secondary-school catalogue of novels recommended to support diversity. It caught my attention because Butler was described as a science-fiction writer. I thought I was familiar with science fiction, but I'd never heard of her – nor have a great many other readers, I suspect. For many years, Butler was the sole African-American woman novelist in science fiction. Kindred tells the wrenching and unforgettable story of a young black woman who time-travels and saves the life of her slaveholder ancestor, but it is, in Butler's words, "a grim fantasy", not science fiction. > Beginning in the 1970s, Butler wrote three sequences of novels: the Patternist books, the Lilith's Brood series and the Parable novels (incomplete at her tragic death in 2006). Critically respected, she won the Hugo and Nebula awards, received a Clarke nomination, the PEN lifetime achievement award and a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. A serious writer working in a field that is seldom taken seriously, Butler addressed biological control, gender, humanity's relationship with aliens, genetics and even the development of a fictional religion. Her narratives leave space for the reader's involvement while exploring the nature of change. They gaze unflinchingly on power dynamics. "Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles," Butler stated, "and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together." Butler's writing is courageous, stimulating and infused with a rare purity of intention. Crushingly, she died at the height of her powers. [Bloodchild and Other Stories][2] is a good place to begin discovering her work. [1]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice [2]: http://openlibrary.org/works/OL35621W/Bloodchild_and_other_stories
Quotes
Showing 41-60 of 61
“We are a naturally hierarchical species.”
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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...”
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“Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it.”
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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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“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. Usu...”
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“I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision.”
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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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“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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“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...”
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“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.”
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“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 the...”
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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 spit...”
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“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...”
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“The big talent is persistence.”
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“I'm not pessimistic about much of anything.”
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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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“A 10-pound sack of potatoes lasts a long time.”
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“I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.”
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“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.”
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“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...”
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