The Making Of Us Quotes
"I wouldn’t know where to start. I really wouldn’t."
"I have to know that you are in the right place, mentally, for me to make you fit."
"It’s like I had a mission and I’ve accomplished it."
"I thought I was going mad. And now I know I’m not."
"I wouldn’t say they choose. But you are given a few salient details about the donor."
"I am here as your personal trainer, right? You pay me to make you fit. That is the deal."
"Liver of steel. But she felt as tired as a dead person just crawled out of their grave."
"I love you so much that it makes bluebirds fly around my heart."
"She wouldn’t believe it was going to be OK until she’d held her baby in her arms."
"He was solid, like an armchair, and he smelled of pillows and fabric conditioner."
"Following in her donor father’s mysterious and glamorous footsteps."
"I am not one of you. I come from my own tribe, once-removed on the ladder of evolution."
"This man here was her real dad, this man in his green Blue Harbour crewneck sweater and Clarks shoes."
"He would push her, unknowingly, towards a career in medicine."
"People loved their dogs with a ferocious passion; didn’t mean they were the same thing."
"I wouldn’t worry about clothes for the baby."
"It seems so distant. It seems so ... extraordinary now. Now it seems extraordinary, then it seemed normal, mundane even."
"I made life, Maggie! Can you believe it? I made life!"
"We are totally, completely, inextricably linked. It is ... it is like a miracle!"
"It has taken me thirty years to understand this, thirty years to know what it is that I have done."
"That was what happened, of course, when people procreated."
"Their faces were greedy and soft, as though they were drawing something out of the baby."
"It did occur to her that maybe her friend was cross with her, for not holding her baby at the party, for leaving early."
"She stayed for hours beyond her comfort zone, hoping that the other guests would peel away."
"The world went on without her. She was her own worst enemy."
"I feel like we haven’t really celebrated the baby coming yet."
"She had been living inside herself for too long."
"He looked like a cartoon character gone under a cement roller."
"I would love to accept. Thank you, Lydia. You have made me very, very happy."
"You English. You’re very strange about these things. So ashamed of money and success."
"The mirror told her different things every time she looked in it."
"The pieces of her own personal jigsaw were coming together."
"I can’t stand what you’re doing to him. I can’t stand it!"
"I love you. I really love you. I’m going to pack. I’ll see you in a few hours."
"I’ve missed you so much. I thought it was all over."
"You may as well be. To be honest, I was that close to saying 'Father unknown'."
"I love you and I’m glad you did what you did. I like being alive."
"I decided a long time ago just to put the whole thing in a little box and forget about it."
"I want you to put on at least half a stone tonight. Maybe more."
"I can live with you not knowing your real father, in a way that was my last gift to my brother, but you not knowing your brothers and sisters, believing that you’re all alone in the world ... well, I may or may not have made a terrible mistake, you may hate me for it forever, but I felt deep down in my heart of hearts that I’d done the right thing."
"It was bad enough when your mother died. I thought that that had ripped the heart out of everything. I thought that that was the worst it would ever, ever be. But when that little scrap of a boy was presented to me there, on my own doorstep, my own nephew, my own family, well, I can’t think there’s a worse thing to go through, I can’t think there’s a greater pain to be felt."
"He’d been crying, in his basket. Your mother had been painting your room. She went to him with paint on her hands. She couldn’t leave a baby to cry, not ever, your mum. She was too soft."
"I think, after you were born, he started worrying about things ... Well, like the fact that you didn’t look like him. I don’t think he felt he ever connected with you, not properly."
"I was always, I think, a little bit in love with your mother, Lydia, if that doesn’t shame me to say so. And I think your dad knew that."
"Poor little baby boy. How sad. For you. For your mother. For all of us."
"Thank you, all of you, thank you so much for coming. I am happy."
"It’s just a house. A big one. You’ll have to come and visit."
"Wasn’t this what it was all about? Wasn’t this the whole point of being related to people?"
"It was only ever just some fun, you know ..."
"A baby. You’ve got a baby. And that means ... that means that I’m an auntie!"
"Continuity. The soothing reassurance that it would all carry on."
"Meeting you two, both so clever and so ... what’s the word? You know, driven and stuff ... it’s made me wonder what else I could be doing."
"I care for you, Lydia. And I want to be here for you."
"I have to work hard and play fair and stay within my means if I ever want to be the kind of man who could live in a house like this on my own merits."
"I want to be her proper dad, you know. Maybe get some qualifications, get a job, get a flat, and then she can come and live with me."
"It’s amazing! I’ve found this new world and I’m totally a part of it."
"It’s like I’ve joined some exclusive club and I’m a VIP member!"
"It’s like suddenly there’s all these people around, good people."