Octavia E. Butler

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that. ”

Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head? ”

The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life. ”

My characters hope for better lives. ”

The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through. ”

I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision. ”

The big talent is persistence. ”

No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly. ”

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them. ”

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. ”