Nicole

“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of "wrong" ideas.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Kindred

“Cameron found that when people use female as a noun, as opposed to woman, it’s often in explicitly negative contexts. For example: My poor Clemence was as helpless a female as you’d find in a long day’s march. “Stupid, crazy female” was all he said as he set about bandaging it. A call yesterday involved giving the chatty female at the other end one’s address. These examples all involve a speaker passing derogatory judgment on the subject. And though their statements would still be insulting if you swapped in the word woman, they would be, as Cameron says, “less unequivocally contemptuous.” The corpus data also showed that the noun form of female is almost never used in a positive context. You wouldn’t hear someone say, “My best friend is the kindest, most generous female I have ever met.”
― Amanda Montell, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

“When I meet a woman who attracts me, I prefer women,' she said. 'And when I meet a man who attracts me, I prefer men.'

'You mean you haven't made up your mind yet.'

'I mean exactly what I said. I told you you wouldn't like it. Most people who ask want me definitely on one side or the other.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Patternmaster