Lydia

“Once people get the idea that it’s all right to take what you want and destroy the rest, who knows when they’ll stop.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“The child in each of us
Knows paradise.
Paradise is home.
Home as it was
Or home as it should have been.

Paradise is one's own place,
One's own people,
One's own world,
Knowing and known,
Perhaps even
Loving and loved.

Yet every child
Is cast from paradise-
Into growth and new community,
Into vast, ongoing
Change.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“Drowning people
Sometimes die
Fighting their rescuers.”
― Octavia Butler

“Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower