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“We're too often guilty of thinking that our parents arrived on this planet as fully functioning adults on the day that we were born. That they don't have pasts of their own prior to our birth. That the father is not also a son, that the mother is not also a child. My mother had a tough beginning, enduring thing I know little about. And yet I more often discount her pain and overvalue mine. This is suddenly funny to me, ridiculously selfish, and I laugh and the outburst is startling. I lie still as the sound launches skyward like a rocket, reaches the stratosphere, then quietly falls back in the form of a quote I once read: Yours is by far the harder lot, but mine is happening to me. In this moment, I miss my mother.”
― Lily and the Octopus
― Lily and the Octopus
“Jenny smiles as if to soften her insult. "Grief is a pathological condition. It's just that so many of us go through it in life that we never think to treat it as such. We just expect people to go through it, endure it, and come out the other side.”
― Lily and the Octopus
― Lily and the Octopus
“Tonight it is me who wants to burrow to the foot of the bed, to find the safest spot under the covers, where I can feel small and protected and warm. A spot away from the nightmare of the octopus, away from the reach of his quivering arms, away from what I know is coming next.”
― Lily and the Octopus
― Lily and the Octopus
“You try to kill me, we have business. You try to kill my dog, you die.”
― Lily and the Octopus
― Lily and the Octopus
“There's a sigh. An exhale. When Lily was younger, in her sleep she would make a similar noise, usually right before her legs would start racing, the preamble to a beautiful dream about chasing squirrels or birds or pounding the warm sand on an endless golden beach. I don't know why, but I think of Ethan Hawke answering the standard questionnaire inspired by Bernard Pivot that ended every episode of Inside the Actors Studio:
"What sound or noise do you love?"
Puppies sighing, Ethan had said.
Yes! Such a wonderful juxtaposition, signing puppies. As if warm, sleeping puppies felt anything lamentable or had weariness or exasperations to sign over. And yet they sighed all the time! Exhalations of sweet, innocent breath. But this sign is different. Subtly. To the untrained ear it might not be noticeable, but I know Lily about as well as I think it's possible to know another living thing, so I notice it. .There's a heaviness to it. A creakiness. There are cares in her world: there is weight on her shoulders.”
―
"What sound or noise do you love?"
Puppies sighing, Ethan had said.
Yes! Such a wonderful juxtaposition, signing puppies. As if warm, sleeping puppies felt anything lamentable or had weariness or exasperations to sign over. And yet they sighed all the time! Exhalations of sweet, innocent breath. But this sign is different. Subtly. To the untrained ear it might not be noticeable, but I know Lily about as well as I think it's possible to know another living thing, so I notice it. .There's a heaviness to it. A creakiness. There are cares in her world: there is weight on her shoulders.”
―
Marissa’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marissa’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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505 books
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148 books
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120 books
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51 friends
67 books
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234 books
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8 books
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33 books
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