The child in each of us Knows paradise. Paradise is home. Home as it was Or home as it should have been. Paradise is one's own place, One's own people, One's own world, Knowing and known, Perhaps even Loving and loved. Yet every child Is cast from paradise- Into growth and new community, Into vast, ongoing Change.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that each person carries a sense of paradise within themselves, rooted in their childhood, but as they grow, they face changes that lead them away from that paradise.
Octavia Butler's quote emphasizes the concept that every individual possesses a child's innate understanding of paradise, which represents the ideal state of being, characterized by love, belonging, and familiarity. However, as people mature, they are inevitably exposed to change and new communities that can lead them away from this initial sense of paradise, highlighting the tension between holding onto the past and embracing growth and transformation in life.
In practice
During a speech about personal development, one could reference this quote to illustrate the balance between nostalgia and progress.
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.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
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.
There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
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.
Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.
The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit.
Tonight, tonight we've reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president. Standing here, standing here as my mother's daughter, and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come.
If you don't like who you are and where you are, don't worry about it because you're not stuck either with who you are or where you are. You can grow. You can change. You can be more than you are.
You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.
After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever.
A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.
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