Octavia E. Butler

Several years ago, when I was about to start a novel, I thought I might get some mileage out of the idea of a civilization in which people somehow felt - that is, they shared - all the pain and all the pleasure they caused one another. ”

With a disaster like global warming, it's too late to worry about when it's looming except to figure out how to adapt to it. ”

Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it. ”

Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish. ”

I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children's stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, 'Can't you write anything normal?' ”

Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow. ”

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest. ”

When I was between 2 and 3 years old, I got to know my first non-human being. The non-human was a cocker spaniel named Baba. We weren't friends, Baba and I, nor enemies. He wasn't my dog. He belonged to the people my mother worked for, and he lived in the house with them and us. ”

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. ”

I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining. ”