Olive Quotes

“You must remember that no decision is ever really the wrong decision. Because it's the decision you made at the time. Respect your past self and her choices.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Sometimes we don’t ‘know’ for sure, and maybe we never will, but we just have to live each day in the way that feels most natural to us.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Leaving something behind isn’t just about having a child who will roam the earth after you’ve gone. A legacy is made up of everything you’ve ever done. It’s everything you leave behind. It’s every choice you make. It’s every person you meet. It’s every feeling you’ve passed on. It’s every story you tell.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I think I am in that rare and temporary point in life where I am an ‘old young person’ and a ‘young old person’. I’m bang in the middle: young enough to be cool, old enough to have some experience of how shit life can be.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Did you know six minutes of reading can help reduce stress levels by up to sixty percent?"
... "That's sixty-eight percent better than listening to music, one hundred percent better than drinking tea, and three hundred percent better than going for a walk.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“My first question when I meet her will be whether she feels any pressure to be seen to be 'having it all' in a different way: travelling, sex, friendships, hobbies. Having to 'make up for' not having kids in some weird way. Ambition with a capital 'A'.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Whenever women shouted, 'Oww, what a cute baby! My ovaries! They just twitched!' I would think there was something incredibly wrong with me because my ovaries have never twitched... Holding Oscar now, in this moment, my ovaries make no movement at all. Maybe they're washing their hair or out for the day.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Have you ever questioned that maybe nothing was wrong with you in the first place? That nothing needed fixing? That you are right where you are meant to be? There are so many ways to live a fulfilled life. What you do, the people you impact, it’s all so valuable.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“The positives of a child-free life for me are more time and money, to do all the things I want to do in life”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I think society secretly envies women like me who live precisely the way they want to without buckling to outside pressures or expectations”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“We’re all out here, making up our lives as we go along. There is no ‘better’ path. There is no ‘worse’ path. Each of us tries our very best to get through the weeks, months and years using what we have and what we were given, and the rest of it is just down to sheer luck.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“We made different choices so it doesn’t really make sense to be jealous. But still, it’s the easiest thing in the world to compare yourself to others”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Many people make the mistake of kicking friendships aside for the other seemingly more important strands of life, but we all know it’s friendship that really keeps you afloat.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I guess this is being human: we can never be 100 percent sure about any decision we make.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I just want everyone in this room to remember to look deep inside and know sometimes we don’t have to stifle ourselves with the pressure. We don’t have to build up this huge unanswerable question in our heads: Do I Want Kids? It hangs over us, but why? Sometimes we can just roll with it, make smaller natural decisions as we go along and follow what makes us happy daily, and in doing so we will make the right decision for us in the end, without turning it into something so pressurized. Do you know what I mean?”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I have a difficult enough time getting motivated to take good care of myself. I cannot imagine having to always put a child first.’ Maria, 26”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Maybe people who want kids or live for their kids will never get it why I don’t want them,’ I went on. ‘But here are a few reasons: kids would ruin our relationship. Kids are hard work. Kids will destroy my body, and my freedom. Kids will destroy my bank account, and I don’t have any money as it is. The world is overpopulated! The world is a mess!”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer.’ Gloria Steinem, Chelsea Lately, October 2011”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“You start to realize exercise is no longer about vanity, but necessity. Your metabolism changes too, sadly starting to slow down. You start to realize you ‘should’ go easier on the cheese boards, but you won’t because brie is everything. Then there are the hangovers! Drinking two bottles of Prosecco doesn’t feel like having a beaker of lemonade any more – it fizzes and pops and aches in your head the next day; but fortunately you have more willpower now to ‘get on with it’.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“when you turn thirty, you are suddenly gifted a new kind of respect for yourself. ‘You will care less, as if by magic, my dear,”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Well, you must remember that no decision is ever really the wrong decision. Because it’s the decision you made at the time. Respect your past self and her choices,”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Society rewards couples so much. Life is just so much easier in a couple. Cheaper, easier, more logical...I glare at the couple in the seats next to me...I actually can't believe I was one of those smug couples for so long.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Whilst so many of my friends were paying extortionate amounts to increase their fertility and chances of pregnancy, I was swatting away my partner´s penis like an annoying fly.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I know she looks like a swan swimming around on the surface, but her legs are really splashing around unterneath.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I think every one of us has a Sliding Doors moment, whether we know it or not. This is mine.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I’d somehow put Dorothy into a small box of tradition and convention. It’s just what I’d associate with her generation. Her little life across the road.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I can’t help feeling that her moving forwards is just a reminder that I’m only moving back.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“I guess this is being human: we can never be 100 per cent sure about any decision we make.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“no choice is the wrong choice because it’s the one you make at the time with the information you have.”
― Emma Gannon, Olive

“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer.” Gloria Steinem, Chelsea Lately, October 2011”
― Emma Gannon, Olive