Science fiction,” Butler writes, “has long treated people who might or might not exist – extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation.
It has told us about you,” Ahajas said as they carried Nikanj down to the lower corridors. Kahguyaht preceded them, opening walls. Jdahya and Tediin followed.
Peace is dangerous because it encourages complacency and carelessness.
That’s history. It happened whether it offends you or not. Quite a bit of it offends me, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
And the only way to prove to yourself you have power is to use it.
We can, Each of us, Do the impossible As Long as we can convince ourselves That it has been done before.
The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments – the ones abolishing slavery and guaranteeing citizenship rights – still exist, but they’ve been so weakened by custom, by Congress and the various state legislatures, and by recent Supreme Court decisions that they don’t much matter. Indenturing indigents is supposed to keep them employed, teach them a trade, feed them, house them, and keep them out of trouble. In fact, it’s just one more way of getting people to work for nothing or almost nothing.
They consider it a sin to take any life, yet they kill and kill.
Do not worship God Inexorable God Neither needs nor wants Your worship. Instead, Acknowledge and attend God, Learn from God, With forethought and intelligence, Imagination and industry, Shape God. When you must, Yield to God. Adapt and endure.
Patrols. Groups of young whites who ostensibly maintained order among the slaves. Patrols. Forerunners of the Ku Klux Klan.
To benefit your world, Your people, Your life, Consider consequences, Minimize harm Ask questions, Seek answers, Learn, Teach.
There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.
They’re both afraid. They look at their children – Alan has four kids, too – and they’re afraid and ashamed of their fear, ashamed of their powerlessness. And they’re tired. There are millions of people like them – people who are frightened and just plain tired of all the chaos. They want someone to do something. Fix things. Now!
These were God’s people come to bring the true faith to the cultist heathens. I suppose if some of the heathens died of it, that wasn’t really very important.
Once he’s made everyone who isn’t like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn’t cause. That’s easier than trying to fix the problems.
Darkness Gives shape to the light As light Shapes the darkness. Death Gives shape to life As life Shapes death. The universe And God Share this wholeness, Each Defining the other. God Gives shape to the universe As the universe Shapes God.
His father wasn’t the monster he could have been with the power he held over his slaves. He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.
In spite of your loss and pain, you aren’t alone. You still have people who care about you and want you to be all right. You still have family.
This means God is not to be prayed to. Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that persons resolve. If they’re used that way, they can help us in our only real relationship with God.
It’s amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.