Jenny Downham Quotes
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Should we say something?’ Cal asks. ‘Goodbye, bird?’ I suggest. He nods. ‘Goodbye, bird. Thank you for coming. And good luck.
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Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much.
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I didn't understand that when you make love, you actually do MAKE love. Stir things. Affect each other. The breath that escapes from me is dazzled. He breathes it in with a gasp.
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I miss him as soon as he goes. When he isn't with me, I think I made him up.
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Parents don't know their children at all. No one knows anyone, in fact.
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It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.' 'Why are you saying that?' 'She might need permission to die, Cal.' 'I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.
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I shrug him off. 'Can't you just go away?" There's a moment. It has a sound in it, as if something very small got broken.
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Don't think you have to be good because you're the only one left. Be as bad as you like.
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That slow smile again. I love that smile! DId I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.
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She'll understand what I already know - that death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between your teeth.
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It was strange how words meant something when they came out of your mouth. Inside your head they were safe and silent, but once they were outside, people grabbed hold of them.
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I can see inside planes!' he yells. 'Come and look!' It's difficult climbing in a mini dress...I haul myself up even though my arms ache. I want to see inside planes too. I want to watch the wind and catch birds in my fist.
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The inside of the door is glossy white. A total re-paint. I touch it with my fingers, but it stays the same. It's so bright it makes the room waver at the edges. Every few years we disappear.
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It's as if a child with a brush and too much enthusiasm has been set free with a tin of black paint inside me.
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Moments. All gathering towards this one.
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If you want a girl to like you, you have to listen like a woman and love like a man.
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Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I’m afraid. More afraid than you’d ever believe.’ And he’d take her hand and they’d fly across the rooftops and up into space and sit on some planet and watch a double sunrise or maybe a star being born or some other event that no human had ever seen, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. And she’d tell him everything.
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Dad, you played rounders with me, even though you hated it and wished I'd take up cricket. You learned how to keep a stamp collecion because I wanted to know. For hours you sat in hospitals and never, not once, complained. You brushed my hair like a mother should. You gave up work for me, friends for me, four years of your life for me. You never moaned. Hardly ever. You let me have Adam. You let me have my list. I was outrageous. Wanting, wanting so much. And you never said, 'That's enough. Stop now.
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I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things.
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Nurses never tell you what they know. They're hired for their cheeriness and the thickness of their hair. They need to look alive and healthy, to give the patients something to aim for.
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Maybe you should say goodbye, Cal.' 'No.' 'It might be important.' 'It might make her die.
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Death straps me to the hospital bed, claws its way onto my chest and sits there.I didn't know it would hurt this much. I didn't know that everything good that's ever happened in my life would be emptied out by it.
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We make patterns, we share moments. Sometimes, I think I'm the only one to see it.
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As an actor I worked for seven years with a community theater company based in London. We used improvisation techniques to take stories to young people who wouldn't normally have access to them - in prisons, hospitals, young offender's units, youth clubs and housing estates.
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Bye, Tess. haunt me if you like. I don't mind.
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Do you want this to be a love story?
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And now he's down this for me. He's made me famous. He's put my name on the world.
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I love you. I love you. I send this message through my fingers and into his, up his arm and into his heart. Hear me. I love you. And I'm sorry to leave you.
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I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.
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Don't pretend to care. I don't need you as an anesthetic.
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