20 Octavia Butler Quotes From a Great Writer

Fans of science fiction will love these Octavia Butler quotes!

Octavia Butler was a science fiction writer who received numerous accolades, including the Hugo and Nebula awards.

In 1995 Ms. Butler even won the MacArthur Fellowship, becoming the first Science Fiction writer to do so.

Octavia Butler was born in Pasadena, California, in 1947 and was raised by her widowed mother during the Black Power Movement.

Shy and facing dyslexia, Octavia took to writing as an outlet to escape her bullying and social isolation.

As her interest in writing grew, Octavia attended college and writer’s workshops to continue honing her writing skills.

Octavia Butler wrote many successful stories and passed away at 58 in 2006.

Enjoy these Octavia Butler quotes to learn more about the talented science fiction writer.

If you enjoy this article, check out our collection of Dune quotes from the novel that reshaped science fiction.

Inspiring Octavia Butler quotes

The following quotes are some of Ms. Butler’s most inspirational quotes!

1. “A long leash is still a leash.” — Octavia Butler

2. “Read every day and learn from what you read.” — Octavia Butler

3. “I began writing about power because I had so little.” — Octavia Butler

4. “None of us knows very much. But we can all learn more.” — Octavia Butler

5. “I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open.” — Octavia Butler

6. “Good stories are good stories, no matter how they’re categorized.” — Octavia Butler

7. “Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.” — Octavia Butler

8. “All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes You.” — Octavia Butler

9. “We give lip service to acceptance, as though acceptance were enough.” — Octavia Butler

10. “As a kind of castaway myself, I was happy to escape into the fictional world of someone else’s trouble.” — Octavia Butler

Thought-provoking Olivia Butler quotes

The following quotes will leave you thinking deeper…

11. “In order to rise / From its own ashes / A phoenix First / Must / Burn.” — Octavia Butler

12. “Freedom is dangerous, but it’s precious, too. You can’t just throw it away or let it slip away.” — Octavia Butler

13. “That’s what Humans are, too, don’t forget. People who poison each other, then disclaim all responsibility.” — Octavia Butler

14. “’Yes,’ he said, ‘intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter.’” — Octavia Butler

15. “Short-lived people, people who could die, did not know what enemies loneliness and boredom could be.” — Octavia Butler

16. “A partner must be biologically interesting, attractive to us, and you are fascinating. You are horror and beauty in rare combination.” — Octavia Butler

17. “He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.” — Octavia Butler

18. “If you want a thing — truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it.” — Octavia Butler

19. “How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?” — Octavia Butler

20. “At last, I began to say that my most important talent — or habit — was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel.” — Octavia Butler

What did you learn from these Octavia Butler quotes?

Octavia Butler was a successful writer

She was not a one-hit-wonder.

Ms. Butler wrote many short stories and full books, and her most successful pieces may have been Speech Sounds and Bloodchild, which both won the Hugo Award.

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