Quotes from Louise Brown

I never felt any different from anyone else though.

Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.

When dad told me Mr Steptoe had passed away, I broke down.

I bought a selection of short, romantic fiction novels, studied them, decided that I had found a formula and then wrote a book that I figured was the perfect story. Thank goodness it was rejected.

a raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can't protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they're not respectable. It's worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl—or a boy—is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once.

I'm playing catch with Nisha and Nena. They're standing against the opposite wall shrieking with enjoyment. They're teenagers, but they've never played catch before and lack any sense of coordination; when they throw the ball to me it flies in any direction. Sometimes it hits the wall behind them. We've been playing for half an hour and they have only caught it twice.

Another of them died last night. His body was in the bazaar this morning. It lay, with a collecting bowl at its feet, on the charpoy that is reserved for those who die without money or family to bury them. He looked desiccated and his skin had the sheen and color of the dates we eat to break our fast. There are new bodies on that charpoy every week.

Reading is my greatest luxury.

Don't call 'em dogs. Dogs are loyal and they run after balls.