“Intelligence is relatively new to life on Earth, but your hierarchical tendencies are ancient.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn’t give him power.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“Sometimes they need to prove to themselves that they still own themselves, that they can still care for themselves, that they still have things—customs—that are their own.”
“Sounds like an expression of the Human conflict,” Aaor said.
“It is,” I agreed. “They’re proving their independence at a time when they’re no longer independent...”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“Human beings fear difference,” Lilith had told him once. “Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it. They need it to keep themselves from stagnation and overspecialization. If you don’t understand this, you will. You’ll probably find both tendencies surfacing in your own behavior.” And she had put her hand on his hair. “When you feel a conflict, try to go the Oankali way. Embrace difference.” Akin”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“I wouldn’t want to give up being what I am,” I said. “I … I want to be ooloi. I really want it. And I wish I didn’t. How can I want to cause the family so much trouble?” “You want to be what you are. That’s healthy and right for you. What we do about it is our decision, our responsibility. Not yours.” I”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“This would be so goddamn much easier if I weren’t human,” she said. “Think about it. If I weren’t human, why the hell would I care whether you got raped?”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“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, quote from Lilith's Brood
“Akin rested his chin on Iriarte’s shoulder and savored the strange pale scents—all pale now.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“She could not make herself ask whether he would be conscious and aware during these experiments. She hoped he would be.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“The war was an insanity he had never understood, and no one in Phoenix had been able to explain it to him. At least, 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. He thought he understood anger, hatred, humiliation, even the desire to kill a man. He had felt all those things. But to kill everyone … almost to kill the Earth … There were times when he wondered if somehow the Oankali had not caused the war for their own purposes. How could sane people like the ones he had left behind in Phoenix do such a thing—or, how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn’t give him power.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
Octavia E. Butler
Born place: in Pasadena, California, The United States
Born date June 22, 1947
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“Bir şeyi yapmanın en çabuk, en kolay ve en ucuz yolu ilk seferinde düzgün yapmaktır.”
― K.J. Parker, quote from Devices and Desires
“What would it be like to be joy-stricken? To labor through the days inconsolably shadowed by delight; pierced by overwhelming, paralyzing beauty; immobilized with wonder; felled by curiosity; unable to get past appreciation; unable to function except to ask over and over, giddily, "Why me? Why such luck?”
― Carl Safina, quote from Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
“Steel blades such as you and I do not measure against the standards for ordinary women”
― Kate Quinn, quote from The Alice Network
“There’s an Oriental saying I like: “If aggression meets empty space it tends to defeat itself.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“Whether you made your choices with your eyes open or closed, they’re made. It’s not time to regret them; it’s time to live with the consequences.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, quote from The Queen of Blood
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