Цитаты из книг — Октавия Батлер

Обсидиан коснулся ее, когда она надевала кобуру, и сложной цепочкой жестов спросил, заряжено ли оружие. Она угрюмо кивнула. Он погладил ее по руке. Она снова спросила его, хочет ли он поехать домой вместе с ней, на этот раз с помощью других жестов. Он вроде бы колебался. Может, его можно уговорить. Он вышел и пересел на…

“This world would be a better place if people lived according to Earthseed,” I said. “But then, this world would be better if people lived according to the teachings of almost any religion.”

Fires are illegal. You can see them flickering all over the hills, but they are illegal. Everything is so so dry that there’s always a danger of campfires getting away from people and taking out a community or two. It does happen. But people who have no homes will build fires. Even people like us who know what fire can do…

God, I hate this place. I mean, I love it. It’s home. These are my people. But I hate it. It’s like an island surrounded by sharks - except that sharks don’t bother you unless you go in the water. But our land sharks are on their way in. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for them to get hungry enough.

Choose your leaderswith wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To…

All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.

When I was your age, my mother told me that the stars - the few stars we could see - were windows into heaven. Windows for God to look through to keep an eye on us.

It’s funny. Cory and Dad have been using some of the money Keith brought us to help the people who’ve been robbed. Stolen money to help victims of theft.

There are always a few groups of homeless people and packs of feral dogs living out beyond the last hillside shacks. People and dogs hunt rabbits, possums, squirrels, and each other. Both scavenge whatever dies. The dogs used to belong to people-or their ancestors did. But dogs eat meat. These days, no poor or middle…

Some middle class men prove they’re men by having a lot of wives in temporary or permanent relationships. Some upper class men prove they’re men by having one wife and a lot of beautiful, disposable young servant girls. Nasty.

My God doesn’t love me or hate me or watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love for or loyalty to my God. My God just is.

They’re dead. They aren’t suffering, and if you didn’t like them when they were alive, why get so upset about their being dead? Cory gets upset. She jumps on me for sharing pain with the living, but she tries to share it with the dead.

Maybe God is a kind of big kid, playing with his toys. If he is, what difference does it make if 700 people get killed in a hurricane— or if seven kids go to church and get dipped in a big tank of expensive water?

Keith says God is just the adults’ way of trying to scare you into doing what they want. He doesn’t say that around Dad, but he says it.

At least three years ago, my father’s God stopped being my God. His church stopped being my church. And yet, today, because I’m a coward, I let myself be initiated into that church. I let my father baptize me in all three names of that God who isn’t mine any more.

- Сначала меня обучали, потом я демонстрировала то, чему научилась. Знать и уметь пользоваться своими знаниями - не одно и тоже.

- Послушай, Йядайя говорил, что меня должны будут многому научить, для того меня и Пробудили. Но не задавая вопросов и не получая на них ответы, я вряд ли чему научусь.