Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)

by Octavia E. Butler

Strange how normal it’s become for us to lie on the ground and listen while nearby, people try to kill each other.

As wind, As water, As fire, As life, God Is both creative and destructive, Demanding and yielding, Sculptor and clay. God is Infinite Potential: God is Change.

Nice country, and compared to Southern California, rich country. More water, more food, more room. … So why were the people eating one another?

You tiptoe through cities. You keep up a steady pace, keep your eyes open, and try to look both too intimidating to bother and invisible. Neat trick. Bankole says cities have been like that for a long time.

It’s easier to say what I didn’t see—or didn’t recognize. I didn’t see condescension or that particular kind of disregard that some men reserve for women. He wasn’t deciding that my “no” was a secret “yes.” Something else was going on.

I haven’t wanted anything at all for a long time. Too long.

I looked at him. For a moment I was too angry to let myself speak. When I could control my voice, I said, “It’s all right if you don’t believe, but don’t laugh. Do you know what it means to have something to believe in? Don’t laugh.

We could hear people shooting, screaming, cursing, running. … Same old stuff—tiresome, dangerous, and stupid.

I managed to sleep through some of it. I got over being afraid, even got over being angry. In the end, I was only tired.

Wages—surprise!—were never quite enough to pay the bills.

According to new laws that might or might not exist, people were not permitted to leave an employer to whom they owed money. They were obligated to work off the debt either as quasi-indentured people or as convicts. That is, if they refused to work, they could be arrested, jailed, and in the end, handed over to their employers.

Either way, such debt slaves could be forced to work longer hours for less pay, could be “disciplined” if they failed to meet their quotas, could be traded and sold with or without their consent, with or without their families, to distant employers who had temporary or permanent need of them. Worse, children could be forced t...

But then, there’s nothing more replaceable than unskilled labor.

Late one night, she and Tori slipped out past the armed guards and electrified fences, the sound and motion detectors and the dogs. Both knew how to be quiet, how to fade from cover to cover, how to lie still for hours. Both were very fast. Slaves learned things like that—the ones who lived did.

We found your clearing, but we didn’t see you. You know how to hide.” That, I suppose was a compliment. We try to disappear into the scenery when that’s possible. Most of the time it isn’t. Tonight it isn’t. And tonight we watch two at a time.

Slavery again—even worse than my father thought, or at least sooner.

Anyone dirty enough to be a slaver is dirty enough to tell a pack of lies.

Respect God: Pray working. Pray learning, planning, doing. Pray creating, teaching, reaching. Pray working. Pray to focus your thoughts, still your fears, strengthen your purpose. Respect God. Shape God. Pray working.

My brother Marcus once said what good slaves sharers would make.”

I’ve never heard anyone moan like that. She cried and moaned there at the roadside, and the others stopped and waited for us. No one spoke. Justin began to whimper and Natividad came back to comfort him. The wordless message was the same for both child and woman: 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.

It was live and let live. Neither humans nor animals were foolish enough to waste time attacking one another. Behind us and to the north, the fire began to roar.

the side of the road for a moment, and gag in peace. There was a lot of gagging. Coughing and gagging and crying muddy tracks onto our faces.

A few miles south are state parks filled with huge redwood trees and hordes of squatters. The land surrounding us, however, is as empty and wild as any I’ve seen.

Create no images of God. Accept the images that God has provided. They are everywhere, in everything. God is Change— Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.

I wonder what you have to do to become a cop. I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.

They searched him and took the cash he was carrying. Fees for police services, they said. He had been careful to carry only what he thought would be enough to keep them sweet-tempered,

Children were the keys to most of the adults present.

“You know, as bad as things are, we haven’t even hit bottom yet. Starvation, disease, drug damage, and mob rule have only begun. Federal, state, and local governments still exist—in name at least—and sometimes they manage to do something more than collect taxes and send in the military. And the money is still good. That amazes me. However much more you need of it to buy anything these days, it is still accepted. That may be a hopeful sign—or perhaps it’s only more evidence of what I said: We haven’t hit bottom yet.”