I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the struggle of individuals who face societal opposition and discrimination.
Octavia Butler's quote encourages reflection on the profound challenges that individuals face when society is aligned against them. It underscores the importance of empathy and understanding for those who experience systemic biases, illustrating how oppressive societal forces can affect personal identity and well-being.
In practice
During a community event on social justice, this quote can be used to spark a discussion about systemic inequality.
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.
God doesn't seek for golden vessels, and does not ask for silver ones, but He must have clean ones.
Scrape the surface of language, and you will behold interstellar space and the skin that encloses it.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
Why I oppose the nuclear-arms race: I prefer the human race.
With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed.
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