Quotes by Chris Cleave

on a bike ride through the Surrey Lanes, pedalling in my cotton dress through the hot fields blushing with poppies, freewheeling down a sudden dip into a cool wooded sanctum.

You are a mousetrap of a friend, all soft cheese and hard springs

Exposing corruption, brandishing truth.

I want to be a journalist again. I want to make a difference in the world.

What is the good of influence if one can only use it on strangers?

Murder me with bombs you poor lonely sod I will only build myself again and stronger. I am too stupid to know better I am a woman built on the wreckage of myself.

The true moments of ones life were sadder for the fact that they must always be synchronized with the ordinary: with rail timetables, with breaks in traffic.

There are countries of the world, and regions of ones own mind, where it is unwise to travel.

On the girls brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

Mary leaned back, exhaled, and watched her smoke rise. What sort of man do you want anyway?Tall. Funny. Never came top of his class or pulled the wings off bees.Yes, but I mean really? When all of this is over, and assuming we win - ...Hilda snorted. (I) just want a tall man and a stiff drink. You could even swap the adjectives.

For me and the girls from my village, horror is a disease and we are sick with it. It is not an illness you can cure yourself of by standing up and letting the big red cinema seat fold itself up behind you.

Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.

Putting down the power right from the whistle would be ugly and brutal, but it would get the job done. He wanted to tell her that, but this was the thing with coaching: you had to step back at exactly the moment you ached to step forward.

Let them say whatever gives them comfort.

I did not want to tell her what happened, but I had to now. I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.

A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars a s beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’.In a few breaths’ time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them as we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means the storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and then she will turn round and smile.

I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But (...) we must see all scars as beauty. (...) Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

I understand that your brain is large and perpetually at war with itself

I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.