Octopus Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old octopus quotes, octopus sayings, and octopus proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

If guilt was an animal then it would be an octopus. All slimy and wriggly with hundreds of arms that wrap around your insides and squeeze them tight. Annabel Pitcher
When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body. Ben Lerner
He had electric blue hair that had stuck around his head like tendrils of a startled octopus. Cassandra Clare
Every science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts. Charles Fort
I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated. Che Guevara
Dressing a baby is like putting an octopus into a string bag, making sure none of the arms hang out. Chris Evans
Businesses are great structures for managing big projects. It's like trying to develop the ability to walk without developing a skeleton. Once in a blue moon, you get an octopus, but for the most part, you get skeletons. Skeletons are good shit. Cory Doctorow
Brandt and a couch-or worse, an empty master bedroom-were a very bad combo. He morphed from vaguely risque fling to bad-boy octopus man whenever he was in the vicinity of any marginally promising flat surface. Diana Peterfreund
I waved back and went in, and began to sort my way through ancient building plans that had been rolled up so long that straightening them out was like six bouts with an octopus. Dick Francis
The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to. Dodie Smith
Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time! Drew Barrymore
Aithinne smiles. "You know," she says thoughtfully, "your hair rather looks like an octopus." Then, as if to reassure me: "I love octopi." And Aithinne is obviously a bit barmy, but nobody's perfect. Elizabeth May
No one ever explained the octopuses. Gail Carriger
Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways. H. Jackson Brown
Talking to that fool is like trying to put socks on an octopus! James Agee
I got to try the bagpipes. It was like trying to blow an octopus. James Galway
Now, I don't know if you can appreciate this without actually knowing her, but getting Mrs. Stricker to laugh is like getting an octopus to stand up on two legs. James Patterson
For the real menace of our Republic is this invisible Government which like a giant Octopus, sprawls its slimy length over our City, State, and nation. John Francis Hylan
When Mary is confused or perplexed, she spurts anger the way an octopus spurts ink, and hides in the dark cloud of it. John Steinbeck
But to ask pity of our body is like discoursing in front of an octopus, for which our words can have no more meaning than the sound of the tides, and with which we should be appalled to find ourselves condemned to live. Marcel Proust
At twenty life was like wrestling an octopus. Every moment mattered. At thirty it was a walk in the country. Most of the time your mind was somewhere else. By the time you got to seventy, it was probably like watching snooker on the telly. Mark Haddon
Exaggeration is the octopus of the English language. Matthew Pearl
And I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, there, deep within its own sphere of instinct, the octopus dreams of me. N. Scott Momaday
I smile to myself. I have a secret: I wish I was Dumbo the Octopus. Ned Vizzini
Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub? Norton Juster
Fashion is such an octopus. You're connected to so many people: suppliers, pattern makers, production teams, marketing teams, vendors. Raf Simons
Her opponent was half pill bug, half octopus, and all butt ugly. I closed my eyes again. Richard Roberts
Just as an octopus may have his den in some ocean cave, and come floating out a silent image of horror to attack a swimmer, so I picture such a spirit lurking in the dark of the house which he curses by his presence, and ready to float out upon all whom he can injure. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The fact that three-fifths of an octopus' neurons are not in their brain, but in their arms, suggests that each arm has a mind of its own. Sy Montgomery
In their brief time together slothrop forms the impression that this octopus is not in good mental health, though where's his basis for comparing? Thomas Pynchon