Leslie

“That educated didn’t mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three hundred fugitives to freedom.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Kindred

“I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Kindred

“Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.”
― Marvin Bell

“He moved uncomfortably. "Reading's too much trouble. Mr. Jennings said I was too stupid to learn anyway."
"Who's Mr. Jennings?"
"He's the schoolmaster."
"Is he?" I shook my head in disgust. "He shouldn't be. Listen, do you think you're stupid?"
"No." A small hesitant no. "But I read as good as Daddy does already. Why should I have to do more than that?"
"You don't have to. You can stay just the way you are. Of course, that would give Mr. Jennings the satisfaction of thinking he was right about you.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Kindred