Oumou Sy Quotes

In the Philippines, we don't have that much of a problem. There's not much difference between the men and the women. In our business, we always have a good mixture of the men and the women. ~ Teresita Sy-Coson

...pretending our inner lives are a weight our bodies have been burdened with, that love is something we make for a few minutes at the end of the day. ~ Sy Safransky

In some evolving civilizations, for reasons which we don't entirely understand, the evolution of consciousness is attended by a disaster of some sort which occurs shortly after the Sy breakthrough. It has something to do with the discovery of the self and the incapacity to deal with it, the consciousness becoming self-conscious but not knowing what to do with the self, not even knowing what its self is, and so ending by being that which is not, and making others what they are not. ~ Walker Percy

SM Seaside City Cebu: soon to be the Philippines' Largest Mall and the 4th Largest in the World ~ Henry Sy

The comment is abrupt, uncalled for, yet clearly important for him to get across, a way of naming himself, turning out his pockets, the way others let on in a hurry that they know Christ, or where to get cocaine. ~ Sy Safransky

I've cried out, and my cry has been answered--but life, with all its contradictions and ambiguities, hasn't ended there. The thirsty man drinks and gets thirsty again. ~ Sy Safransky

I stay with my family. I try to be a good husband and good dad. That's my real life. ~ Omar Sy

We're an odd match. Imagine Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson; imagine night and day. George has built nuclear reactors and believes in them fiercely. We stay away from this and other subjects the way I'd stay away from Three Mile Island. After all, I have plenty of friends who share my most impassioned opinions; we can have an orgy of agreement any day at the natural foods restaurant, over a sprout sandwich. But he's the one out here helping. ~ Sy Safransky

I think all animals have souls. I feel certain that if we have souls, octopuses have souls, too. If you grant something a soul, it demands a certain level of sacredness. Look around us. The world is holy. It is full of souls. ~ Sy Montgomery

As with a child, to commune with Athena demands a level of openness and intuition greater than that used in the usual discourse between adult humans of a common culture. ~ Sy Montgomery

The ocean, for me, is what LSD was to Timothy Leary. He claimed the hallucinogen is to reality what a microscope is to biology, affording a perception of reality that was not before accessible. Shamans and seekers eat mushrooms, drink potions, lick toads, inhale smoke, and snort snuff to transport their minds to realms they cannot normally experience. (Humans are not alone in this endeavor; species from elephants to monkeys purposely eat fermented fruit to get drunk; dolphins were recently discovered sharing a certain toxic puffer fish, gently passing it from one cetacean snout to another, as people would pass a joint, after which the dolphins seem to enter a trancelike state.) ~ Sy Montgomery

I push back against him, meeting his forceful pounds with my eager pu*sy. Riding the razors edge of climactic heaven. ~ S.K. Logsdon

...if you believe, instead, that the passing years are a celebration of life, who knows what they'll bring? ~ Sy Safransky

Although he was curious, she was also a little bit scared. ~ Sy Walker

Nothing in my younger life could have told me I would have needed to know how to speak English. ~ Omar Sy

Laos is saddled with the distinction of one superlative: it is the most heavily bombed country on earth. During the nine-year secret war against the Communists, during the Vietnam War, the U. S. dropped 6,300,000 tons of bombs on Indochina, about 1/3 of which fell on Laos. It was the heaviest aerial bombardment in the history of warfare. During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. rained more bombs on Laos than were dropped on Nazi Germany during World War II -- three times the tonnage dropped during the Korean War -- the equivalent of a plane load of bombs every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 years. ~ Sy Montgomery

But Christopher obeyed a higher calling: the intoxicating call of green grass and sunshine, the sweet scent of the earth on one of the last days of summer. ~ Sy Montgomery

We split from our common ancestor with the octopus half a billion years ago. And yet, you can make friends with an octopus. ~ Sy Montgomery

After forty years, with whatever authority comes from lived experience, I can say: You, too, can create something. You can nurture it and watch it grow. ~ Sy Safransky

Bear-time seems slow to us, perhaps, because we do not have the patience for such a life. ~ Sy Montgomery

You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan, focus, work hard and be very determined to achieve your goals. ~ Henry Sy

I am still learning how to be a good creature. Though I try earnestly, I often fail. But I am having a great life trying... ~ Sy Montgomery

We forget what missiles our words are, how much damage we can cause with one thoughtless comment between the coffee and the toast. ~ Sy Safransky

I'm definitely more at ease with comedy - that's where I started out - and so it's my first love, so to speak, and I have more of a sensibility for it and more familiar with it. Having said that, I also want to be open to everything else. ~ Omar Sy

I have always loved octopuses. No sci-fi alien is so startlingly strange. ~ Sy Montgomery

Human relationships with predators have always been thorny. Predators are the first creatures our kind purposely eradicates. Too often, people feel humans are and should be in control; we are enraged to discover this is not true. And when other creatures share our appetites and kill our livestock (often animals we were raising to kill, ourselves), we call them vandals and murderers ... Predators are the most persecuted creatures on Earth. ~ Sy Montgomery

Nothing the night said about the morning turned out to be true. ~ Sy Safransky

Anthropomorphism is such an interesting concept. It means projecting human thoughts and emotions onto an animal. Which implies that thoughts and feelings belong to humans alone. Of course, if you believe in evolution, or if you believe in the Bible, that's not so. Both evolution and the Bible tell us that we're part of a family. ~ Sy Montgomery

There was a tank of special flounder about fifteen feet away from the octopus tank," he said. The fish were part of a study. But to the researchers' dismay, the flounder started disappearing, one by one. One day they caught the culprit red-handed. The octopus had been slipping out of her tank and eating the flounder! When the octopus was discovered, Scott said, "she gave a guilty, sideways look and slithered away. ~ Sy Montgomery

I heard one story about an octopus in a home tank who would get out, cruise around the house, take knick-knacks, and drag them back to its tank. Like a dog! They're so smart that there are octopus enrichment handbooks so you don't bore your octopus. I've seen them play with Legos, Mr. Potato Head, you name it! ~ Sy Montgomery

I'm looking for a writer who doesn't know where the sentence is leading her; a writer who starts with her obsessions and whose heart is bursting with love, a writer sly enough to give the slip to her secret police, the ones who know her so well, the ones with the power to accuse and condemn in the blink of an eye. It's all right that she doesn't know what she's thinking until she writes it, as if the words already exist somewhere and draw her to them. She may not know how she got there, but she knows when she's arrived. ~ Sy Safransky

Watching a pig eat is the ultimate vicarious thrill. Seldom can you take such pleasure in another's joy. Here is someone following his bliss. Pigs are quite literally made for eating - they were bred to eat and get fat fast. ~ Sy Montgomery

For the men, they are more of a risk taker, and for the women, they are more nurturing and more details. So the combination of the men and women is very good for business. ~ Teresita Sy-Coson

My deepest gratitude goes to those we've quoted - men and women who labored long and hard to express in a few words a lifetime of experience; others who rarely wrote but paused in the middle of a busy life or a sleepless night with pen in hand, who wept and found a way to make of their suffering a gift, who laughed and found a way to make us laugh, too. ~ Sy Safransky

In that dark chamber of my heart, where I confuse being right with being loved.... ~ Sy Safransky

To get to know someone so different from myself as an octopus, and to know that the individual recognised me and even enjoyed my company, was an enormous privilege. The octopuses I came to know were strong but gentle, and the suction of their suckers tasting my skin pulled me like an alien's kiss. ~ Sy Montgomery

I learned by example ... As a kid you think you are just the same as other adults. ~ Teresita Sy-Coson

Go out into the world where your heart calls you. The blessings will come, I promise you that. I wish for you the insight to recognize the blessings as such, and sometimes it's hard. But you'll know it's a blessing if you are enriched and transformed by the experience. So be ready. There are great souls and teachers everywhere. It's your job to recognize them. ~ Sy Montgomery

We grew up in a very demanding environment. Dad expects us to prove ourselves ... so my siblings and I worked hard to reach what we have today, and I guess we have to continue working hard to maintain it. ~ Teresita Sy-Coson

I was just born into a business family. It is really a destiny. ~ Teresita Sy-Coson

Normally a prolonged stare from a gorilla is a threat. But Digit's gaze bore no aggression. He seemed to say: I know. Dian would later write that she believed Digit understood she was sick. ~ Sy Montgomery

I never predicted that I'd be a comedian, but it was something that came so naturally to me. I just felt good doing it. ~ Omar Sy

We are always mistaking the suffering of others; it's either much worse than we think or not nearly so bad. ~ Sy Safransky

Just about every animal," Scott says - not just mammals and birds - "can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy. ~ Sy Montgomery

And that was part of the tragedy: I had just started to know her. I was mourning the relationship that could have blossomed but didn't have a chance to grow. ~ Sy Montgomery

I started with shoes, and with hard work and discipline, the business prospered. I moved to the department store business and again, things went well. ~ Henry Sy

If you took the monsters' point of view, everything they did made perfect sense. The trick was learning to think like a monster. ~ Sy Montgomery

I go to bed with horror on my wings. In my pillow is sad comforts. Like my mother says, 'On essaye a s'y prendre, pi sa travaille pas' (We try to manage, and it turns out shit). ~ Jack Kerouac

I have thought for a long time that one day, if I finally got to deserve it, I would love to write about the minds of invertebrates. ~ Sy Montgomery