# Quote — Octavia E. Butler, Imago

> I might not have believed this if a Human had said it. Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everybody had to spend time and energy figuring out what they really meant.

- Author: [Octavia E. Butler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler.md)
- Book: [Imago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago.md)
- Page: 548
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Octavia_Butler#Imago_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago/i-might-not

## More from this book

> Tomas stopped and looked at the three Oankali. “Do you believe in spirits?”
>
> “We believe in life,” Ahajas said.
>
> “Life after death?”
>
> Ahajas smoothed her tentacles briefly in agreement. “When I’m dead,” she said, “I will nourish other life.”
>
> “But I mean—”
>
> “If I died on a lifeless world, a world that could sustain some form of life if it were tenacious enough, organelles within each cell of my body would survive and evolve. In perhaps a thousand million years, that world would be as full of life as this one.”
>
> “...it would?”
>
> “Yes. Our ancestors have seeded a great many barren worlds that way. Nothing is more tenacious than the life we are made of. A world of life from apparent death, from dissolution. That’s what we believe in.”
>
> “Nothing more?”
>
> Ahajas became smooth enough with amusement to reflect firelight. “No, Lelka. Nothing more.”

p. 662 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago/tomas-stopped-and.md)

> Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.

p. 649 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago/helpless-lust-and.md)

> Life was treasure. The only treasure.

p. 564 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/octavia-e-butler/imago/life-was-treasure.md)