Octavia Butler Quotes

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. – Octavia Butler

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. – Octavia Butler

I began writing about power because I had so little. – Octavia Butler

All that you change, changes you. – Octavia Butler

I hate how doubt is told to be silenced. – Octavia Butler

There is nothing magical in them. They can have nothing that you’re not prepared to take from them. – Octavia Butler

I train myself to do all sorts of things one day, to write music the next, to write essays the day after that. – Octavia Butler

I don’t have time to write the great American novel. I have ideas for the great American novel. – Octavia Butler

I like to learn things, and I’m not happy when I’m not learning. – Octavia Butler

If you think God’s going to take care of you, then you don’t have to take care of yourself. – Octavia Butler

Loss is a bigger thing than gain. It’s everything all around you and inside you. – Octavia Butler

There is no end to the world. It’s just where we stand this moment. – Octavia Butler

In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn. – Octavia Butler

I have the freedom and opportunity to read, to write, and to speak. I have the freedom and opportunity to look at the words of other people without censoring their words. – Octavia Butler

All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. – Octavia Butler

Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, and so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part. – Octavia Butler

Good writing is clear thinking made visible. – Octavia Butler

To choose safety is to choose meaninglessness. – Octavia Butler

Writing is one of the few professions in which you get better only by doing it. – Octavia Butler

Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. – Octavia Butler

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. – Octavia Butler

No one should have to convince you that you matter. – Octavia Butler

When we’re trying to create a future, the very first thing we must do is believe in our own selves. – Octavia Butler

We have to shape our own futures. We have to write our own stories. – Octavia Butler

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say. – Octavia Butler

The more I could imagine—that is, see or hear in my imagination—about these people, the better I could bring them to life on the page. – Octavia Butler

I have the freedom and opportunity to read, to write, and to speak. I have the freedom and opportunity to look at the words of other people without censoring their words. – Octavia Butler

The only lasting truth is change. God is change. – Octavia Butler

The only lasting truth is change. God is change. – Octavia Butler

There is no end to the world. It’s just where we stand this moment. – Octavia Butler

I think that a space is better than taking up space. – Octavia Butler

Writing is one of the few professions in which you get better only by doing it. – Octavia Butler

In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn. – Octavia Butler

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you, whether you’re inspired or not. – Octavia Butler

First, forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. – Octavia Butler

Positive obsession is about not letting rejection stop you from trying. – Octavia Butler

Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you. – Octavia Butler

I think it’s the best condition of the world [the mind of the writer] that things seem like chaos. It was Virginia Woolf who said that a woman must be allowed a room of her own if she is to write fiction. When I read that, I admired the courage of the woman who wrote it. – Octavia Butler

Habit is persistence in practice. – Octavia Butler

You cannot damn me more than I already damn myself. – Octavia Butler

I began writing about power because I had so little. – Octavia Butler

You’re never there. You’re always running away from something. – Octavia Butler

It’s an energy thing, a strength thing, a leadership thing. It’s part of love, strength and intelligence. – Octavia Butler

Everything you need to known is in there somewhere the Golden Rule and love and basic biochemistry. – Octavia Butler

There is nothing mystical, esoteric or supernatural about creativity. – Octavia Butler

I know what I was trying to say when I wrote fiction. If readers wanted something else, then that’s what they wanted. It’s not what I wanted. I don’t write down to readers. – Octavia Butler

Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you. – Octavia Butler

To choose safety is to choose meaninglessness. – Octavia Butler

No one should have to convince you that you matter. – Octavia Butler

Don’t wait for the future. The future is now. – Octavia Butler