“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, quote from Kindred
“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of "wrong" ideas.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“That educated didn’t mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three hundred fugitives to freedom.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“...I realized that I knew less about loneliness than I had thought - and much less than I would know when he went away.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“Like all good works of fiction, it lies like the truth.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“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, quote from Kindred
“Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“Then, somehow, I got caught up in one of Kevin's World War II books - a book of excerpts from the recollections of concentration camp survivors. Stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease, torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.
... Like the Nazis, antebellum whites had known quite a bit about torture - quite a bit more than I ever wanted to learn.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“There are so many interesting times we could have visited.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“I closed my eyes and saw the children playing their game again. 'The ease seemed so frightening.' I said. 'Now I see why.'
'What?'
'The ease. Us, the children ... I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“As a kind of castaway myself, I was happy to escape into the fictional world of someone else's trouble.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“I lost an arm on my last trip home.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You need to look at some of the niggers they catch and bring back,” she said. “You need to see them—starving, ’bout naked, whipped, dragged, bit by dogs … You need to see them.” “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, quote from Kindred
“Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed someone who looked like me to show me the way. I was ignorant and arrogant and persistent and the writing left me no choice at all.”9”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“The ease. Us, the children… I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“in an interview Butler has stated that the meaning of the amputation is clear enough: “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.”1 Time”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships. Only the overseer drew simple, unconflicting emotions of hatred and fear when he appeared briefly. But then, it was part of the overseer’s job to be hated and feared while the master kept his hands clean.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“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, quote from Kindred
“She was strange now, erratic, sometimes needing my friendship, trusting me with her dangerous longings for freedom, her wild plans to run away again; and sometimes hating me, blaming me for her trouble. One”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“He led the way past the main house away from the slave cabins and other buildings, away from the small slave children who chased each other and shouted and didn’t understand yet that they were slaves.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“Someday Rufus would own the plantation. Someday, he would be the slaveholder, responsible in his own right for what happened to the people who lived in those half-hidden cabins. The boy was literally growing up as I watched—growing up because I watched and because I helped to keep him safe. I was the worst possible guardian for him—a black to watch over him in a society that considered blacks subhuman, a woman to watch over him in a society that considered women perennial children. I would have all I could do to look after myself. But I would help him as best I could. And I would try to keep friendship with him, maybe plant a few ideas in his mind that would help both me and the people who would be his slaves in the years to come.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“She went to him. She adjusted, became a quieter more subdued person. She didn't kill, but she seemed to die a little.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“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, quote from Kindred
“Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn't say them, couldn't sort out my feelings about them, couldn't keep them bottled inside me.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“But tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep. I thought of Alice, and then of Rufus, and I realized that Rufus had done exactly what I had said he would do: Gotten possession of the woman without having to bother with her husband. Now, somehow, Alice would have to accept not only the loss of her husband, but her own enslavement. Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense. I”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
“This is the biggest lot of abolitionist trash I ever saw.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. “That book wasn’t even written until a century after slavery was abolished.”
“Then why the hell are they still complaining about it?”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Kindred
Octavia E. Butler
Born place: in Pasadena, California, The United States
Born date June 22, 1947
See more on GoodReads
“Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.”
― Louise Erdrich, quote from The Round House
“It won't be an easy journey - do not expect it to be. But the easy journeys are not worth the leather on the soles of our shoes, boy. It's the journeys that test us to our very core - the journeys that strip the clothes from our back, mess with our minds and shake our spirits - these are the journeys worth taking in life. They show us who we are.”
― Justin Somper, quote from Demons of the Ocean
“Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art.”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“We glide and I feel as if I'm floating.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again
“There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back for one instant—not to change anything, not even to speak to Lydia, not to tell her anything at all. Just to open the door and see her daughter there, asleep, one more time, and know all was well.”
― Celeste Ng, quote from Everything I Never Told You
The Rose That Grew f...
The Hook Up
The Last Star
Half Upon a Time
The Mime Order
The Life-Changing Ma...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.
