Quotes from Brenda Davies

If you fall out of the boat put your feet up, lie back and relax. Your life jacket knows which way is up. Let the river hold you. You won't drown." -Zambezi River Guide.

Nora is home in herself at last. She has won. And as Janet listens and watches, and knows that her work here is complete, she rejoices. This is what it's all about. This is the goal. This is the reward. They hold each other's eyes. No longer doctor and patient, but just two women, equals.

the measure of our greatness is in how we stand up after we fall".

all men, just of different cultures, wearing different uniforms, having different-coloured skins perhaps, but simply men nevertheless

lest she be blown away by a capricious wind.

It is she who is offering compassion to Janet. Compassion and gratitude in equal parts.

I'm inspired by your courage, to say nothing of your wisdom and your beauty as a human being. Sometimes places like this destroy those things, but even though you've lost so much, here you are, whole, standing on your own. From tomorrow, you can choose.

just a state of nothingness.

She is standing in a garden trying to peg together scraps of memory on a washing line, but the wind snatches them away, scattering them out of her reach.

I've spent many an hour with an inner argument about armed conflict, trying to distinguish the act of killing from the act of murder – the one apparently being worthy of honour and praise and the other of punishment and disgrace.

foetus. In the beginning her wailing would be tolerated for a short while

think and talk and act rather than react,