Dawn

Quotes

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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 30 | Loc. 517-19  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:12 PM

“You were wrong,” she said. She could not sustain her anger. She could not look at his tentacled, alien face and sustain anger—but she had to say the words. “You destroyed what wasn’t yours,” she said. “You completed an insane act.” “You are still alive,” he said. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 32 | Loc. 546-50  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:14 PM

Memory of a division is passed on biologically. I remember every one that has taken place in my family since we left the homeworld.” “Do you remember your homeworld itself? I mean, could you get back to it if you wanted to?” “Go back?” His tentacles smoothed again. “No, Lilith, that’s the one direction that’s closed to us. This is our homeworld now.” He gestured around them from what seemed to be a glowing ivory sky to what seemed to be brown soil. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 36 | Loc. 613-15  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:19 PM

She was comforted by his words and ashamed of needing comfort. How had she become so dependent on him? She shook her head. The answer was obvious. He wanted her dependent. That was the reason for her continued isolation from her own kind. She was to be dependent on an Oankali—dependent and trusting. To hell with that! 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 38 | Loc. 648-55  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:22 PM

He tried to lead her into his family’s woods, but she held back. “There’s something I need to understand now,” she said. “You call it a trade. You’ve taken something you value from us and you’re giving us back our world. Is that it? Do you have all you want from us?” “You know it isn’t,” he said softly. “You’ve guessed that much.” She waited, staring at him. “Your people will change. Your young will be more like us and ours more like you. Your hierarchical tendencies will be modified and if we learn to regenerate limbs and reshape our bodies, we’ll share those abilities with you. That’s part of the trade. We’re overdue for it.” “It is crossbreeding, then, no matter what you call it.” “It’s what I said it was. A trade. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 39 | Loc. 670-73  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:23 PM

“I think I wish your people had left me on Earth,” she whispered. “If this is what they found me for, I wish they’d left me.” Medusa children. Snakes for hair. Nests of night crawlers for eyes and ears. He sat down on the bare ground, and after a minute of surprise, she sat opposite him, not knowing why, simply following his movement. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 44 | Loc. 713-17  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:32 PM

“You see?” the ooloi asked softly. She frowned at it. It was naked as were the others except for Jdahya. This did not bother her even at close quarters as much as she had feared it might. But she did not like the ooloi. It was smug and it tended to treat her condescendingly. It was also one of the creatures scheduled to bring about the destruction of what was left of humanity. And in spite of Jdahya’s claim that the Oankali were not hierarchical, the ooloi seemed to be the head of the house. Everyone deferred to it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 45 | Loc. 720-22  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:32 PM

Looking at Kahguyaht, she took pleasure in the knowledge that the Oankali themselves used the neuter pronoun in referring to the ooloi. Some things deserved to be called “it.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 51 | Loc. 818-23  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:39 PM

“We altered them genetically—changed some of their requirements, enabled them to respond to certain chemical stimuli from us.” She looked at the ooloi. “It’s one thing to do that to a plant. It’s another to do it to intelligent, self-aware beings.” “We do what we do, Lilith.” “You could kill us. You could make mules of our children—sterile monsters.” “No,” it said. “There was no life at all on your Earth when our ancestors left our original homeworld, and in all that time we’ve never done such a thing.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 58 | Loc. 940-44  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:48 PM

“Then … at least let me make my own records to help me learn your language. We humans need to do such things to help us remember.” “No.” She frowned. “But … what do you mean, ‘no’? We do.” “I cannot give you such things. Not to write or to read.” “Why!” “It is not allowed. The people have decided that it should not be allowed.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1162-67  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:03 PM

“You would sleep through it the way you did when Ooan Jdahya corrected your tumor.” “Ooan Jdahya? Jdahya’s ooloi parent did that? Not Kahguyaht?” “Yes. It was done before my parents were mated.” “Good.” No reason at all to be grateful to Kahguyaht. “Lilith?” Nikanj laid a many-fingered hand—a sixteen-fingered hand—on her arm. “It will be like this. A touch. Then a … a small puncture. That’s all you’ll feel. When you wake up the change will be made.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1168-74  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:03 PM

“I don’t want to be changed!” There was a long silence. Finally it said, “Are you afraid?” “I don’t have a disease! Forgetting things is normal for most humans! I don’t need anything done to my brain!” “Would it be so bad to remember better? To remember the way Sharad did—the way I do?” “What’s frightening is the idea of being tampered with.” She drew a deep breath. “Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain. I don’t want—” “Who you are won’t be changed. I’m not old enough to make the experience pleasant for you, but I’m old enough to function as an ooloi in this way. If I were unfit, others would have noticed by now.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 73 | Loc. 1186-89  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:05 PM

Ayre died—was dead when the ambulance arrived, though paramedics tried to revive him. Sam only half died. He had head injuries—brain damage. It took him three months to finish what the accident had begun. Three months to die. He was conscious some of the time—more or less—but he did not know anyone. His 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 75 | Loc. 1205-16  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:07 PM

“Get out of here!” she shouted. “Get away from me!” It did not move. It continued to speak in the same soft voice. “Ooan says humans won’t be worth talking to for at least a generation.” Its tentacles writhed. “I don’t know how to be with someone I can’t talk to.” “Brain damage isn’t going to improve my conversation,” she said bitterly. “I would rather damage my own brain than yours. I won’t damage either.” It hesitated. “You know you must accept me or Ooan.” She said nothing. “Ooan is an adult. It can give you pleasure. And it is not as … as angry as it seems.” “I’m not looking for pleasure. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I just want to be let alone.” “Yes. But you must trust me or let Ooan surprise you when it’s tired of waiting.” “You won’t do that yourself—won’t just spring it on me?” “No.” “Why not?” “There’s something wrong with doing it that way—surprising people. It’s … treating them as though they aren’t people, as though they aren’t intelligent.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 78 | Loc. 1253-55  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:09 PM

“But what did you mean about failing—” “I was afraid I could never convince you to trust me enough to let me show you what I could do—show you that I wouldn’t hurt you. I was afraid I would make you hate me. For an ooloi to do that … it would be very bad. Worse than I can tell you.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Bookmark on Page 79 | Loc. 1285  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:11 PM


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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 79 | Loc. 1282-88  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:12 PM

Nikanj made a sound of relief—a rubbing together of body tentacles in a way that sounded like stiff paper being crumpled. “Good,” it said. “Mates know what we feel when they stay near us, they know the frustration. Sometimes they think it’s funny.” Lilith was surprised to find herself smiling. “It is, sort of.” “Only for the tormentors. With you there, they’ll torment me less. But before all that …” It stopped, aimed a loose point at her. “Before that, I’ll try to find an English-speaking human for you. One as much like you as possible. Ooan will not stand in the way of your meeting one now.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 88 | Loc. 1428-33  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:20 PM

“Why are you going back?” Titus asked. “Why do you want to spend your life living like a cavewoman?” “I don’t.” His eyes widened. “Then why don’t you—” “We don’t have to forget what we know,” she said. She smiled to herself. “I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. We don’t have to go back to the Stone Age. We’ll have a lot of hard work, sure, but with what the Oankali will teach us and what we already know, we’ll at least have a chance.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 89 | Loc. 1447-53  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:21 PM

“If you wanted it,” he said, “they’d let you stay here … with me.” “What, permanently?” “Yeah.” “No.” He put down the small pie that he had not offered to share with her and came over to her. “You know they expect you to say no,” he said. “They brought you here so you could say it and they could be sure all over again that they were right about you.” He stood tall and broad, too close to her, too intense. She realized unhappily that she was afraid of him. “Surprise them,” he continued softly. “Don’t do what they expect—just for once. Don’t let them play you like a puppet.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 89 | Loc. 1454-56  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:21 PM

She sat still and stared at him. Her mother had looked at her the way she was looking at him now. She had caught herself giving her son the same look when she thought he was doing something he knew was wrong. How much of Titus was still fourteen, still the boy the Oankali had awakened and impressed and enticed and inducted into their own ranks? 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 91 | Loc. 1480-84  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:22 PM

His hands were almost gentle on her. “At least they haven’t until now.” He shook her abruptly. “You know how many kids I got? They say, ‘Your genetic material has been used in over seventy children.’ And I’ve never even seen a woman in all the time I’ve been here.” He stared at her for several seconds and she feared him and pitied him and longed to be away from him. The first human being she had seen in years and all she could do was long to be away from him. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 92 | Loc. 1493-97  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:23 PM

“Don’t make yourself their dog!” she pleaded. “Don’t do this!” He kept coming, too far gone to care what she said. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself. He cut her off from the bed by coming over it himself. He cornered her against a wall. “How many times have they made you do this before?” she asked desperately. “Did you have a sister back on Earth? Would you know her now? Maybe they’ve made you do it with your sister.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 93 | Loc. 1516-18  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:24 PM

She turned her face away from it, ignoring the pain. There was a long silence. Finally it said, “We didn’t know.” It stopped, corrected itself. “I didn’t know how the male would behave. He has never lost control so completely before. He hasn’t lost control at all for several years.”