Beware:Ignorance Protects itself.IgnorancePromotes suspicion.SuspicionEngenders fear.Fear quails,Irrational and blind,Or fear looms,Defiant and closed.Blind, closed,Suspicious, afraid,IgnoranceProtects itself,And protected,Ignorance grows.
All that you touchYou Change.All that you ChangeChanges you.The only lasting truthis Change.Godis Change.
God is Change.Earthseed: The Books of the LivingLauren Oya Olamina
In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.
There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.
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.
He rubbed his head again. ‘Five years is longer than it sounds. So much longer.
Consider–We are bornNot with purpose,But with potential.
People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn’t bother me. It’s other people doing the calling that bothers me.
Was an eternity of absolute ease just another name for hell?
There must be good marriages somewhere, but to me, marriage had the feel of people tolerating each other, enduring each other because they were afraid to be alone or because each was a habit that the other couldn’t quite break.
I began writing about power because I had so little.
Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person’s resolve.
Everything is so soft here,’ he said, ‘so easy…’ ‘I know
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.
If you work hard enough at something that doesn’t matter, you can forget for a while about the things that do.
BewareAt war Or at peace,More people die Of unenlightened self-interestThan of any other disease
There is no endTo what a living worldWill demand of you.
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.
My relative examined you, observed a few of your normal body cells, compared them with what it had learned from other humans most like you, and said that you had not only a cancer, but a talent for cancer.
I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.
Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you’ve set. But if you’re writing about science, you have to first learn what you’re writing about.
Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain.
I found that I couldn’t muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we’ve made right here on earth.
I’m Valerie Rye,’ she said, savoring the words. ‘It’s all right for you to talk to me.
I have a huge and savage conscience that won’t let me get away with things.
This is the biggest lot of abolitionist trash I ever saw.”“No it isn’t,” I said. “That book wasn’t even written until a century after slavery was abolished.”“Then why the hell are they still complaining about it?
I wasn’t trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.
People do blame you for the things they do to you.
I do what I can,’ I said. ‘When I can do more, I will. You know that.
Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow.
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.
I think we need people with stronger ideals than John Kerry or Bill Clinton. I think we need people with more courage and vision.
Tolerance, like any aspect of peace, is forever a work in progress, never completed, and, if we’re as intelligent as we like to think we are, never abandoned.