Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2)

by Octavia E. Butler

Submission was no protection. If any of us were to survive, we must escape these people as quickly as possible.

And I was lashed into unconsciousness for trying to kill my bearded keeper with a pickax. It would have been worth any amount of pain if only I could have succeeded.

I wish you had! I'm so angry!

Beware: Ignorance Protects itself. Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.

Reminds me of the "alt right" and racists!!

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.

Missionaries, ugh

Afterward, she kept crying and throwing up. She says she’ll kill herself if she’s pregnant.

This echos real life! Wake. Up. America! This is what some of us are faced with. It's horrifying and very real.

Do the police know? Are some of these “teachers” cops themselves or relatives of cops?

Of course some of them are. Just like in real life

There are worse things happening here in the States and elsewhere, I know. There’s war, for instance.

The homes weren’t kept by sadists or perverts but by people who believed deeply in what they were doing—

okay, but what about your stepfather, Larkin? He is def a perv, so what do you mean?

Remembering wasn’t safe. You could lose your mind, remembering.

We know more about survival than most people. The proof is that we have survived.

There are times when I wish I believed in hell—other than the hells we make for one another, I mean.

“I don’t believe you,” he said at last. “I don’t believe any of this!”

fuck you Marc, you piece of shit

He hit me.

fucking...ugh, this part makes me so angry. I hate him so fucking much, you stupid fucking manbaby

All religions are ultimately cargo cults. Adherents perform required rituals, follow specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally gifted with desired rewards—long life, honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth, victory over opponents, immortality after death, any desired rewards.

“We’re survivors, Len. You are. I am. Most of Georgetown is. All of Acorn was. We’ve been slammed around in all kinds of ways. We’re all wounded. We’re healing as best we can. And, no, we’re not normal. Normal people wouldn’t have survived what we’ve survived. If we were normal we’d be dead.”

“Well, I think we may be related. We can do a gene check later if you like, but I believe your mother was my half-sister. She and your father are dead now.”

I fucking hate you, Marcos. You stupid asshat

We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.”

We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us.

“What makes you think I want to be kept alive?”

Poor Len

Each denomination seemed to think that it had the truth and the only truth and its people were going to bliss in heaven while everyone else went to eternal torment in hell.

There is nothing alien About nature. Nature Is all that exists. It’s the earth And all that’s on it. It’s the universe And all that’s in it. It’s God, Never at rest. It’s you, Me, Us, Them, Struggling upstream Or drifting down.

Let them someday use my ashes to fertilize their crops. Let them do that. It’s arranged. I’ll go, and they’ll give me to their orchards and their groves.

How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.

rat bastard