Octavia E. Butler

“What will they do when they have only the herbs” he asked her.

“Live or die as best they can,” she said. “Everything truly alive dies sooner or later.”

She glanced at him. “What gods do you respect?”

“None.”

“And why not?”

“I help myself,” he said.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling. (p183)

“I don’t understand why the sight of you should scare me so,” Joseph said. He did not sound frightened. “You don’t look that threatening. Just...very different.”

“Different is threatening to most species,” Nikanj answered. “Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it’s true for you.”

"There're are worse things than being dead." (p253)

I got up to leave. There was nothing more to be said. He had asked for what he knew I could not give, and I had refused.

Sometimes, one must become a master to avoid becoming a slave.

He didn’t look all right to me. “Has anyone gone for the doctor?”

“Marse Tom don’t hardly get Doc West for ague. He says all the doc knows is bleeding and blistering and purging and puking and making folks sicker than they was to start.”

“What were they saying?” Daly asked.

“They disapprove of your profession,” Doro told him.

“Heathen savages,” Daly muttered. “They’re like animals. They’re all cannibals.”

“These aren’t,” Doro said, “though some of the their neighbors are.”

“All of them,” Daly insisted. “Just give them the chance.”

Doro smiled. “Well, no doubt the missionaries will reach them eventually and teach them to practice only symbolic cannibalism.”

Daly jumped. He considered himself a pious man in spite of his work. “You shouldn’t say such things,” he whispered. “Not even you are beyond the reach of God.”

“Spare me your mythology,” Doro said, “and your righteous indignation.” Daly had been Doro’s man too long to be pampered in such matters. “At least we cannibals are honest about what we do,” Doro continued. “We don’t pretend as your slavers do to be acting for the benefit of our victims’ souls. We don’t tell ourselves we’ve caught them to teach them civilized religion.”

A pet. In pets, free will was tolerated only as long as the pet owner found it amusing.

“I’ll tell you,” she said softly. “But you won’t like it.”

He looked away from her. “I asked for the truth. Whether I like it or not, I have to know.”

He showed me his fantastic library first, and that helped me warm to him a little. A guy with a room like that in his house couldn’t be all bad.