How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
My mother turned to me. I watched to see the mask, and if it would lift. "Octavian," she said coldly, "don't be a child."
There was a silence.
"But," said 09-01, "he is a child."
"He has never been a child," my mother said, "and I see no reason he should begin now." (1.22.26-29)
Cassiopeia basically reminds Octavian (and everyone else, if they're listening—though her point certainly goes over 09-01's head) that Octavian has only ever been a child in age because he's always been a black slave first. The freedom of childhood isn't even a relevant possibility for a kid like Octavian.
Quote #8
I recall the thought: He knows the way to her heart is through me. And this, rather than causing me distress, that I might be used for the man's amorous ends, filled me with great pleasure and pride. He knows well the way to her heart is through her son. Her son is the thing that makes her happier than any other thing. I entertained the thought again and again; I broke the surface smiling, and gasped for air. (1.24.3)
Can we just point out how incredibly optimistic and generous Octavian is here? Lord Cheldthorpe's totally using him to get into Cassiopeia's good graces, but Octavian doesn't mind how he's being used because he knows a more fundamental truth: his mother loves him the most, and everyone else needs to get in line behind him.
Quote #9
I had stopped brushing a boot, and regarded her fixedly. She came to me and put aside the boot, and held on to me as though I were not a boy of some stature, but an infant, and she rocked me; singing me a crying song, again and again, that she was sorry; she was sorry; she was sorry that she had not—
But she couldn't find a verb which could describe with decency what had been demanded of her. (2.12.16-17)
What a rough spot for Cassiopeia: In rejecting Lord Cheldthorpe's "proposal," she finds herself feeling guilty about not selling herself to him and, in exchange, getting a better life for Octavian than the one that comes his way. The choice between compromising the small bit of personal integrity she's been allowed to have and providing for her son is, arguably, not much of a choice at all.