LALa > LALa 's Quotes

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
― Audre Lorde

“When I began to do a little public speaking, one of the questions I heard most often was, "What good is science fiction to Black people?" I was usually asked this by a Black person...

What good is any form of literature to Black people?

What good is science fiction's thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what "everyone" is saying, doing, thinking -- whoever "everyone" happens to be this year.

And what good is all this to Black people?”
― Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

“There are more valuable things in life than safety and comfort. Learn. You owe it to yourself.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch

“I'm Valerie Rye,' she said, savoring the words. 'It's all right for you to talk to me.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. II: 1926-1929

“Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you.”
― Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”
― Gloria Naylor

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
― Alice Walker

“I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.”
― Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?”
― Idries Shah, Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way

“That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest