Quotes From "Parable Of The Sower" By Octavia E. Butler

Your teachers Are all around you. All that you perceive, All that you experience, All that is given to youor taken from you, All that you love or hate, need or fear Will teach you-- If you will learn. God is your firstand your last teacher. God is your harshest teacher:subtle, demanding. Learn or die. Octavia E. Butler

Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Octavia E. Butler

There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you. Octavia E. Butler

The essentials, " I answered, "are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny. Octavia E. Butler

Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces. Octavia E. Butler

We collected all the bones we could find, and yesterday, Natividad wrapped them in a shawl that she had knitted years ago. It was the most beautiful thing she owned." A thing like that should serve the living, " Bankole said when she offered it." You are living, " Natividad said. "I like you. I wish I could have met your sister. Octavia E. Butler