Quotes from Jane Hawking

In my simple, post-natal frame of mind, I was convinced that if the world were to be run by the mothers of newborn babies rather than hardened old men inciting brash youths to violence, wars would cease overnight.

Live in the present, he said, and trust in God through darkness, pain and fear. Then, as he quoted the biblical passage from Corinthians God will not suffer you to be tested more than you are able

possibly because of their habit of bringing their reading matter to the dinner table and ignoring any non-bookworms present.

there were many well-qualified but unhappy wives in Cambridge whose individual talents had been totally disregarded, spurned by a system which refused to acknowledge that wives and mothers might be capable of an intellectual identity of their own.

They talked to him in his own intellectual terms, sometimes caustically sarcastic, sometimes crushingly critical, always humorous. In personal terms, however, they treated him with a gentle consideration which was almost loving.

So much for the Welfare State. It had contributed so very little to our welfare that one might suppose that its purpose was actually to prevent the disabled from working to their full capacity and, consequently, from contributing as taxpayers to the National Exchequer. A handful of vitamin pills on prescription seemed to be the best it could offer with only minimal physical, practical, moral or financial support.

The contrast between the restrictions placed on him by his shrunken frame and his croaking speech on the one hand, and the power of his mind which allowed him to roam the outer reaches of the universe on the other, provided a fertile source for many imaginative flights of fanciful prose. Moreover

Broadbent-Keeble, a respected pediatrician, came on a social call to visit Timothy

Whatever they may have felt about the risks of such a step, I was beginning to feel confident that Stephen would survive. How could he not survive with so many people contributing in every imaginable way to his recovery? Some

I was twenty-one: all around me our dining companions were in their forties and fifties, if not their sixties and seventies. It was as if we had been propelled into a geriatric culture where our generation was deliberately snubbed as irrelevant.

I concluded that America was a fine place for the healthy and successful, but for the strugglers and the infirm, for the people who, through no fault of their own

but through accidents of birth, prejudice or illness were less able to help themselves, it was a harsh society where only the fittest survived.

I was stunned. I had only just met Stephen and for all his eccentricity I liked him. We both seemed shy in the presence of others, but were confident within ourselves. It was unthinkable that someone only a couple of years older than me should be facing the prospect of his own death. Mortality was not a concept that played any part in our existence. We were still young enough to be immortal.

I began to realize what an advantage a large family network could be: the loss of individuality in appearance was more than compensated by the sense of security which such a network could create.

As of the present chaos I could only hope that, by keeping faith, by still trying to give of one's best, a brighter, calmer day might one day.

the classroom, surrounded by the clatter of massed old-fashioned typewriters and the chatter of ex-debs whose main claim to distinction seemed to be the

On our return from Oxford, no further reference was made to the morning's episode. In the family tradition, it was brushed under the carpet with many other dusty remnants of psychological and emotional detritus, regarded as being too insignificant to merit any consideration in that rarified atmosphere where emotional issues were never discussed because of the threat they might pose to the intellect.

I suppose I was still optimistic and unrealistic, and I just hoped we could keep going as we were. But no. That was not good enough for Stephen, so off he went. Those were hard times. They really were. But then, I suppose, divorce is always hard.

We met in our hometown of St. Albans when I had just left school and Stephen was starting his Ph.D. studies in Cambridge.

I couldn't let him die; I was the agent of life for Stephen.

Our marriage was a great success. Stephen achieved what he wanted to achieve, we kept going for a very long time, and we had three wonderful children together.

Stephen could be highly critical of people other than his closest relatives... He considered my friends to be easy victims and had no compunction in monopolizing the conversation at parties with his controversial opinions.

I was very anxious that Stephen should have every opportunity to fulfil himself.

When I was little, I used to spend a lot of time making up stories when I was put to bed.