“If you hear nonsense like that often enough for long enough, you begin to believe it.”

— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (1998)

About Octavia E. Butler

1947 – 2006

American science fiction author known for 'Parable of the Sower' and 'Kindred', and the Earthseed philosophy at the centre of her novels.

“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.”

“I realize I don’t know very much. None of us knows very much. But we can all learn more. Then we can teach one another.”

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

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end.”

“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.”

“All becoming and growing—all that guarantees a future—involves pain.”

“The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.”

“Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning.”