And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy.
- Octavia Butler Quote

But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical.
- Octavia Butler Quote

Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.
- Octavia Butler Quote

Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
- Octavia Butler Quote

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.
- Octavia Butler Quote

I recognize we will pay more attention when we have different leadership.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there will still be human beings. Granted, there will always be people doing something different and there are a lot of possibilities.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
- Octavia Butler Quote

The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote

What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way.
- Octavia Butler Quote

Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.
- Octavia Butler Quote

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.
- Octavia Butler Quote