Quotes from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“Our ancestors dreamed us up and then bent reality to create us.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“And for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking around on two legs. Our ancestors dreamed us up and then bent reality to create us.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“Because many of the people who were taken by the wasting disease happened to be white, God was not a viable culprit.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“Visionary fiction” is a term we developed to distinguish science fiction that has relevance toward building new, freer worlds from the mainstream strain of science fiction, which most often reinforces dominant narratives of power. Visionary fiction encompasses all of the fantastic, with the arc always bending toward justice. We believe this space is vital for any process of decolonization, because the decolonization of the imagination is the most dangerous and subversive form there is: for it is where all other forms of decolonization are born. Once the imagination is unshackled, liberation is limitless.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“Together they unlocked potential in one another. They worked hard and played harder, until the work felt like play. Everything”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“hipsters and entrepreneurs were complicated locusts. they ate up everything in sight, but they meant well.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“She felt the night air on her, pretending she was somewhere else, in some other time. She often did this before she did something reckless. Her hope was that, if she died, her soul would travel to the last beautiful place she imagined.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“He turned and looked her solemnly in the eyes. “Is it too much to ask for a happy ending?” She smiled sadly. “I don’t think there are any happy endings left.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“Billions of little silver holes poked through the darkness but never threatened to break the fabric.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“God is one answer to our need to explain ourselves, to make sense of ourselves. But the moment you just accept yourself, then no explanation is needed, and god is everything together and nothing in particular.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“and she noticed who stayed, and it was the same people who had always been there.”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

“You know, even if we succeed, some of them aren’t going to want to come with us,”
― quote from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

Popular quotes

“Take Marcus Aurelius! That's right! What did that old bugger do? In very similar situations! Harassed! Maligned! Transduced! On the brink of succumbing under the welter if abject plots... of murderous perfidies!... He withdrew, Ferdinand!... He abandoned the steps of the Forum to the jackals! Yes! In solitude! In exile! That's where he sought his balm! That's where he found new courage!... That's right!... He took counsel on himself! And no one else!... He didn't ask the mad dogs for their opinion!... No! Faugh!... Ah, despicable recantation!...”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, quote from Death on the Installment Plan

“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, quote from Wild Seed

“They were martyred. But what a martyrdom! I had long read about martyrdom in the lives of the saints--how the souls of the martyrs had gone home to Heaven, how they had been filled with glory in Paradise, how the angels had blown trumpets. This was the splendid martyrdom I had often seen in my dreams. But the martyrdom of the Japanese Christians I now describe to you was no such glorious thing. What a miserable and painful business it was!”
― Shūsaku Endō, quote from Silence

“I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.”
― A.J. Jacobs, quote from The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“They’re eating liked starved apes,” Baz muttered as he swished past me with more food. “Haven’t they had enough yet?” he wondered a minute later when we passed again. “Keep your hands well clear of their forks,” he warned me as we pirouetted round each other at the dumbwaiter. “I was nearly stabbed clean through. They’ll be eating the cutlery soon!” “And us if we’re not quick enough,” I added. Baz guffawed then coughed to cover it up.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn

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