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When you're living in a pond of algae, you turn green. It doesn't matter how many times someone tells you to stop.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Since life isn’t fair, it’s often up to us to balance it out.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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But you do have a choice. You make choices every day, and maybe you can't see how they could affect your future, but they do.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Some people can do their homework. Some people get to have crushes on boys. Some people have other things they’ve got to do.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Because what's the point? Octopuses have three hearts, and all of mine have broken.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Screaming monkeys. Flippin’ screaming monkeys.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Even though we’re in the same homeroom, he doesn’t look my way. That’s one of the things about the people on that beautiful tropical island: they can’t see who’s floating about in the ocean around them. Or maybe they can and they just choose not to look. I don’t know. I’ve never been there.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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Is a fishing rod evil because it catches someone's dinner? No. It's a tool. Just the way a gun is. Just the way a chain saw is. Just don't give it to the wrong person.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)
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To single parents everywhere doing the best they can for their kids … To the young people who are speaking up for what’s right, even when it’s hard … You are heroes.
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Ann Braden (The Benefits of Being an Octopus)