Quotes from Bloodchild and Other Stories

Octavia E. Butler ·  214 pages

Rating: (8.4K votes)


“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, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“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, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“Shyness is shit. It isn’t cute or feminine or appealing. It’s torment, and it’s shit.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“I'm Valerie Rye,' she said, savoring the words. 'It's all right for you to talk to me.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“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, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories



“If you work hard enough at something that doesn't matter, you can forget for a while about the things that do.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“Read every day and learn from what you read.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“Bloodchild" is my pregnant man story.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“She just couldn't face caring for a child all alone.'
'People do it all the time.'
'She wasn't "people", she was herself. She knew what she could handle and what she couldn't.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


“Shyness is shit. It isn’t cute or feminine or appealing. It’s torment, and it’s shit. I”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories



“It’s too easy to follow bad but attractive leaders, embrace pleasurable but destructive habits, ignore looming disaster because maybe it won’t happen after all—or maybe it will only happen to other people. That kind of thinking is part of what it means to be adolescent.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Bloodchild and Other Stories


About the author

Octavia E. Butler
Born place: in Pasadena, California, The United States
Born date June 22, 1947
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Philip: "You are even more beautiful when you're angry"
Marianne: "Don't be absurd"
Philip: "I'm not"
Philip: "You should see yourself, with that flash of fire in your eyes. And when you press your lips together like that, a dimple appears in your left cheek, right next to your mouth. I find it... maddening”
― Julianne Donaldson, quote from Edenbrooke


“What we have here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
― Douglas Preston, quote from Relic


“He looked at me screaming and plugging my ears and at the tears dripping like the kitchen tap down my cheeks; my words finally hit him, and he listened. Fish twisted sharply from me to Will Junior as though suddenly adding two and two and getting twenty-seven, even though most people could only ever get four.”
― Ingrid Law, quote from Savvy


“The children have never seen the world outside their home. Not even through the windows. And Malorie hasn’t looked in more than four years. Four years.”
― Josh Malerman, quote from Bird Box


“It was the difference between walking with a stranger and walking with your heartmate. It was the difference between working for duty and working for love.”
― Edith Pattou, quote from East


Interesting books

The Icarus Girl
(3.2K)
The Icarus Girl
by Helen Oyeyemi
It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays
(4.7K)
It Gets Worse: A Col...
by Shane Dawson
The Dark Secret
(7.3K)
The Dark Secret
by Tui T. Sutherland
The Age of Reason
(6.8K)
The Age of Reason
by Thomas Paine
The Captive Maiden
(6.5K)
The Captive Maiden
by Melanie Dickerson
The Shepherd's Crown
(16.3K)
The Shepherd's Crown
by Terry Pratchett

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.