The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus Quotes

“A family man, doing his duty. No one ever spoke of a family woman, Pen thought. The phrase sounded ridiculous.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“He must have thought she was too young to remember. But children remember everything. It’s adults who forget.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“The mother who insists on keeping that inner self of hers alive is monstrous. No one blinks when a father continues devoting himself to whatever it is he most wants to accomplish in this world. But a wife and mother who has priorities of her own and refuses to put them last? Hers becomes a life of conflict, between who she is and what is expected of her. Society deems her selfish and unnatural. If she lets herself believe it, she’s doomed, and so are her children.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“I was your home for a while, I think, as I hold your head in the palm of my hand. And I will be your harbor for a long time yet. But not forever.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“No one blinks when a father continues devoting himself to whatever it is he most wants to accomplish in this world. But a wife and mother who has priorities of her own and refuses to put them last? Hers becomes a life of conflict, between who she is and what is expected of her. Society deems her selfish and unnatural. If she lets herself believe it, she’s doomed, and so are her children.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“somnambulant”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“children remember everything. It’s adults who forget.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“It’s so that she doesn’t compete with her children for food,” said Christina. “Or eat them by mistake. Or otherwise get in the way of progress. It’s common enough, in nature, this stepping aside after reproducing. The parents have had their turn, they’ve lived their lives, and their death gives the next generation a fighting chance to survive. The hatchlings have everything they need by that point. The lessons of the past are in them already. It’s time for their stories to begin, unencumbered by guilt or duty or expectations.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“Parents don’t become redundant right away. But we do become so, eventually, if we’ve done our jobs at all well.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“Getting to choose for oneself is a gift so vanishingly rare that one must never squander it.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“What do you know about the life cycle of the common octopus?" Margot asked.
...
"After the female lays her clutch of eggs, she devotes herself entirely to cleaning and protecting them for months. She stops looking for food, unable to leave them even for a short time. She begins to waste away - senescence, it's called. It's as if she's used up all her life force hunting, outmaneuvering predators, finding a mate, arranging her den, and then, finally, caring for her eggs. By the time they hatch, she's starved herself to death, or nearly. Her skin, once capable of rapid changes in color and texture, goes pale and develops lesions that never heal. Her eyes go cloudy. She begins to pick at herself. Her decomposing body sometimes becomes a source of food for her young...That's the best she can do for them."
...
" Don't worry," Margot added in a more lighthearted tone. "I'm well aware that I'm not an octopus. I just find it useful to remember that there's no reason for me to behave like one.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“The octopus is the most intelligent animal on the planet without a backbone.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“The mother who insists on keeping that inner self of hers alive is monstrous.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“After the female lays her clutch of eggs, she devotes herself entirely to cleaning and protecting them for months. She stops looking for food, unable to leave them even for a short time. She begins to waste away—senescence, it’s called. It’s as if she’s used up all her life force hunting, outmaneuvering predators, finding a mate, arranging her den, and then, finally, caring for her eggs. By the time they hatch, she’s starved herself to death, or nearly. Her skin, once capable of rapid changes in color and texture, goes pale and develops lesions that never heal. Her eyes go cloudy. She begins to pick at herself. Her decomposing body sometimes becomes a source of food for her young.” She smiled a sad, thin-lipped smile. “That’s the best she can do for them.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“There is little room for a mother’s self-interest in the narrative. There is only the selfish monster and the octopus.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“real manners were behaviors undertaken to increase the comfort of another person.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“Pen had been trained to breathe less air than everyone else, whereas Alice had never once in her life felt the need to apologize for taking up space.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“Holding herself accountable for every irresponsible thing her sons did was exhausting.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“duty. No one ever spoke of a family woman, Pen thought. The phrase sounded ridiculous.”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“Wasn't it worth continuing to talk to him, even if it did lead to further disappointment? Wasn't that the point of this time in her life, to make these kinds of mistakes and learn from then, to educate herself?”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“senescence,”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“asceticism”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

“lugubrious”
― Emma Knight, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus