Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butlerwas an American science fiction writer. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the "Genius Grant."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 June 1947
CityPasadena, CA
CountryUnited States of America
years people fortune
In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.
years fifty three
I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer.
ambition years oil
I'm a 48-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Los Angeles -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.
books call cautionary clearly direction save series serve type wrote
While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything.
black difficult experience feeling gave members personal research talked time
I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black.
came discovered early fiction fine interest science
So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy.
definitely good noses people poke shot
Most of us don't have to worry about being shot if we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility.
demands mind work
I have the kind of mind that demands that I work things out, to see how they would really work if they were real. I have to be able to do that.
dad vote politician
Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.
may planning victim
A victim of God may, Through learning adaption, Become a partner of God, A victim of God may, Through forethought and planning, Become a shaper of God. Or a victim of God may, Through shortsightedness and fear, Remain God's victim, God's plaything, God's prey.
home arms lasts
I lost an arm on my last trip home.
tree parent shadow
A tree Cannot grow In its parents' shadows.
narcotics exhaustion
There's no narcotic like exhaustion.
fiction noses sticks
Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.