Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you.

I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,...an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.

The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.

Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.

Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.