Wild Seed Quotes

“In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Civilization is the way one's own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“She learned quickly that it was not good to be too different. Great differences caused envy, suspicion, fear, charges of witchcraft.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“He could not tell her that he was angry because she did not love him. Even he could not utter such foolishness. Certainly, he did not love her. He did not love anyone except perhaps Isaac and a very few of his other children. Yet he wanted Anyanwu to be like his many other women and treat him like a god in human form, competing for his attention no matter how repugnant his latest body nor even whether he might be looking for a new body. They knew he took women almost as readily as he took men. Especially, he took women who had already given him what he wanted of them--usually several children. They served him and never thought they might be his next victims. Someone else. Not them.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Healer that she was, creator of medicines and poisons, binder of broken bones, comforter, could she take the remnants here and build them into a man again?

Doro looked at people, healthy or ill, and wondered what kind of young they could produce. Anyanwu looked at the sick—especially those with problems she had not seen before—and wondered whether she could defeat their disease.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“You are a good man,” she had observed contentedly. “And it has been too long since I had this.” He was surprised”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Habits were difficult to break. The habit of living, the habit of fear … even the habit of love.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Thus, when her enemies came to kill her, she knew more about surviving than they did about killing. And”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“to be aware of a place where blackness was not a mark of slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Civilization is the way one’s own people live. Savagery is the way foreigners live.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Then show me what you are. Give me the trust you ask me to give you.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Then, finally, true success. Isaac.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Could she give Doro what he wanted—what she herself had wanted for so long—children who would not die?”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“No feeling was better than that of being surrounded by her own. Her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“…In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“must not”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“For my people, I respect the gods. I speak as the voice of a god. For myself... in my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“The water harmed him. Soon after Anyanwu had revealed herself, he began to grow ill. He became dizzy. His head hurt him. He said he thought he would vomit if he did not leave the confinement of the small room. Anyanwu took him out on deck where the air was fresh and cooler. But even there, the gentle rocking of the ship seemed to bother him— and began to bother her. She began to feel ill. She seized on the feeling at once, examining it. There was drowsiness, dizziness, and a sudden cold sweat. She closed her eyes, and while Okoye vomited into the water, she went over her body carefully. She discovered that there was a wrongness, a kind of imbalance deep within her ears. It was a tiny disturbance, but she knew her body well enough to notice the smallest change. For a moment, she observed this change with interest. Clearly, if she did nothing to correct it, her sickness would grow worse; she would join Okoye, vomiting over the rail. But no. She focused on her inner ears and remembered perfection there, remembered organs and fluids and pressures in balance, their wrongness righted. Remembering and correcting were one gesture; balance was restored. It had taken her much practice— and much pain— to learn such ease of control. Every change she made in her body had to be understood and visualized. If she was sick or injured, she could not simply wish to be well. She could be killed as easily as anyone else if her body was damaged in some way she could not understand quickly enough to repair. Thus, she had spent much of her long life learning the diseases, disorders, and injuries that she could suffer— learning them often by inflicting mild versions of them on herself, then slowly, painfully, by trial and error, coming to understand exactly what was wrong and how to impress healing. Thus, when her enemies came to kill her, she knew more about surviving than they did about killing.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“Anyanwu said. “This is the way I look when I do nothing. And this is the way I look when I marry a new husband.” “But … you”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“What will I be when there is nothing left but hunger and feeding?”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

“She just said she was tired. Tired to death.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed