I’m literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal. - Octavia E. Butler

I want to write about what's going to happen if we keep doing what we've been doing, if we keep recklessly endangering the environment, if we keep paying no attention to economic realities, if we keep paying no attention to educational needs, if we keep doing a lot of the things that are hurting us now. And that's what I wound up writing about. And everything else just kind of fell into it, fell into place.

Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn’t vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling. (p183)