# Octavia E. Butler

- Quotes: 85
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler

## Books

- [Adulthood Rites](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/adulthood-rites.md) — 5 quotes
- [Bloodchild and Other Stories](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/bloodchild-and-other-stories.md) — 4 quotes
- [Dawn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/dawn.md) — 4 quotes
- [Fledgling](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/fledgling.md) — 6 quotes
- [Imago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago.md) — 5 quotes
- [Kindred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/kindred.md) — 9 quotes
- [Mind of My Mind](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/mind-of-my-mind.md) — 2 quotes
- [Parable of the Sower](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-sower.md) — 23 quotes
- [Parable of the Talents](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents.md) — 18 quotes
- [Patternmaster](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/patternmaster.md) — 2 quotes
- [Wild Seed](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/wild-seed.md) — 7 quotes

## Recently added quotes

> "When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing." (p.275)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/fledgling/when-your-rage.md)

> Consider—
>
> We are born
>
> Not with purpose,
>
> But with potential.

p. 1 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/consider-we-are.md)

> Beware:
>
> Ignorance
>
> Protects itself
>
> Ignorance
>
> Promotes suspicion.
>
> Suspicion
>
> Engenders fear.
>
> Fear quails,
>
> Irrational and blind,
>
> Or fear looms,
>
> Defiant and closed.
>
> Blind, closed,
>
> Suspicious, afraid,
>
> Ignorance
>
> Protects itself,
>
> And protected,
>
> Ignorance grows.

p. 225 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/beware-ignorance-protects.md)

> “I’m not a demagogue.”
>
> “That’s too bad. That leaves the field to people who are demagogues—to the Jarrets of the world. And there have always been Jarrets. Probably there always will be.”

p. 395 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/im-not-a-demagogue.md)

> I’m literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.

p. 405 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/im-literate-and.md)

> You're truly free for the first time. What could be more difficult than that?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/bloodchild-and-other-stories/youre-truly-free.md)

> We can see that our Councils aren’t games like the tribunals humans have. The work of a Council of Judgment is to learn the truth and then decide what to do about it within our law. It isn’t about following laws so strictly that the guilty go unpunished or the innocent are made to suffer. It isn’t about protecting everyone’s rights. It’s about finding the truth, period, and then deciding what to do about it.

p. 220 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/fledgling/we-can-see.md)

> How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.

p. 446 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/how-completely-how.md)

> My ignorance wasn’t just annoying. It was dangerous.

p. 126 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/fledgling/my-ignorance-wasnt.md)

> Overall, the Pox has had the effect of an installment-plan World War III. In fact, there were several small, bloody shooting wars going on around the world during the Pox. These were stupid affairs—wastes of life and treasure. They were fought, ostensibly, to defend against vicious foreign enemies. All too often, they were actually fought because inadequate leaders did not know what else to do. Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war.
>
> Amid all this, somehow, the United States of America suffered a major, nonmilitary defeat. It lost no important war, yet it did not survive the Pox. Perhaps it simply lost sight of what it once intended to be, then blundered aimlessly until it exhausted itself.

p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/parable-of-the-talents/overall-the-pox.md)

> Who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/bloodchild-and-other-stories/who-knows-what.md)

> “Don’t you know everything?”
>
> God smiled. “No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can’t imagine how boring it was.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/bloodchild-and-other-stories/dont-you-know.md)