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.
In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn.
I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.
Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.
The thing about science fiction is that it’s totally wide open. But it’s wide open in a conditional way.
Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn’t had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish.
I lost an arm on my last trip home.
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. 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.
You are horror and beauty in rare combination.
I would never have been a good scientist – my attention span was too short for that.
Third, for people who aren’t doing it already, take classes – they’re worthwhile. Workshops or classes – a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day.
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.
Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you’re hurt, you’re really on your own. You’re alone, and there’s no one to help you.
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.
I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.
He was like me – a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.
Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God. Earthseed: The Books of the Living Lauren Oya Olamina.
To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living.
On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that.
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.
There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.