Mind of My Mind (Patternmaster, #2)

by Octavia E. Butler

“You mean you don’t want to admit you have anything in common with us. But if you were born black, you are black. Still black, no matter what color you take on.”

“I know what it means, Doro. I knew the first time I heard Mary use it. It means niggers!”

Key note to remember in the Patternmaster book. I didn't know that it meant that while i was reading the book (read Patternmaster before this).

I recall warning you about underestimating young women.”

Reference to Anyanwu & Doro at the beginning of Wild Seed.

What ever gave him the idea that someone bred to be so similar to him would consent—could consent—to being controlled by him all her life?

The fiery threads of her Pattern surrounded him. And before him … before him was a slightly smaller replica of himself as he had perceived himself through the fading senses of his thousands of victims over the years. Before him, where all the threads of fire met in a wild tangle of brilliance, was a small sun. Mary. She was like a living creature of fire. Not human. No more human than he was. He had lied to her about that once—lied to calm her—when she was a child. And her major weakness, her vulnerable, irreplaceable human body, had made the lie seem true. But that body, like his own series of bodies, was only a mask, a shell. He saw her now as she really was, and she might have been his twin.

"small sun is in reference to Doro, relating to the sun (mentionedd in Wild Seed).

She was a symbiont, a being living in partnership with her people. She gave them unity, they fed her, and both thrived. She was not a parasite, though he had encouraged her to think of herself as one. And though she had great power, she was not naturally, instinctively, a killer. He was.