When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.
Interpretation
It's wise to remain silent during moments of intense anger.
This quote by Octavia Butler suggests that in times of anger, when emotions are overwhelming, it is more prudent to refrain from speaking. Speaking in such moments can lead to regrettable words and actions, and silence can allow for clarity and composure before responding decisively.
In practice
During a heated discussion in a meeting, one might quote Butler to emphasize the importance of remaining calm and not saying something impulsively.
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.
It is one of the oldest maxims of moral prudence: Do not, by aspiring to what is impracticable, lose the opportunity of doing the good you can effect!
I'm for the dreamers. The only really important things in history have been started by the dreamers. They never know what can't be done.
Remember, the greatest gift to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest.
There is no possibility of relaxation if you have a mind and an ego; the ego is the center of the mind. You will be tense, you will remain tense. How to relax? Is there any way to relax? There is no way unless understanding is there. If you understand the nature of the world, the nature of the very existence, then who are you to worry, and why be in a worried state continuously?
80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. A few things are important; most are not.
An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.
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