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"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."
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"Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure."

"There is more experience on the field of justification than on the camp of training. Sometimes, you got to take actions to learn more."

"It is not age but experience that brings wisdom."

"From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn."

"I am only doing now what I have ever done; and ever will continue to do - that is adapting past experience to present reform in the light of high ideals and future objects."

"Life is a book. Read it. But do not forget to write yours."

"Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young."

"I am already inherently full and complete as I am. Man doesn't need woman and woman doesn't need man in order to experience his or her inherent fullness."

"No matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination."

"I don't know of any other creature on earth other than man that will sit in a corner and cry because of some painful experience in the past."
Explore more quotes by Octavia Butler

"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."

"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."

"A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't."

"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."

"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."

"On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that."

"But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical."

"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."
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