Quotes from Helen Dunmore

skate across the icy sea of oilcloth between me and the bookcase. I kneel up in bed and put on Rob's coat. Its thick, stiff wool is becoming supple again from the heat of my body night after night. I put the sleeve to my face and

Our houses are palaces to those who have none.

These two would never understand each other. I was the only link between them and each of them tugged on it hard in the hope that the other would let go.

You humans are the ones who want more. You want the whole world to bow to human desires.

To be lost from people's thoughts is like a second death.

I know I love her, but I can't find the feeling.

When you're out on the bare ocean and you see a whale breach and blow, you've seen glory.

People say how amazing communications are these days, because you can feel as if you're in the same room as someone in Australia.But you don't really feel that way.You keep telling each other news about your lives,but it feels false.

No one makes a better enemy than a man who has had to beg for your help.

Dad was alive. I believed Conor, but I still didn't really know it. But now I do.

We are living through such times that those yet born will look back in wonder

I am not yet sure that I can live without her

Ten times a day it stopped me like a bolt into my chest: that she was no longer here. That she would never be here. That I might walk and walk and yet I would never again come home to her.

It does not matter what happens now. There is no world: it has fallen away from us.

It's a funny thing how everyone wants to go to the bottom of the world.

I wish I was away in Ingo Far across the briny sea Sailing over deepest waters Where neither care nor worry trouble me.

In a world without air all you breathe is adventure!

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

For you where never my blood sister so no more shall I call you little sister

They wanted spring, of course they wanted it, more than anything. They longed for sun with every pore of their skin. But spring hurts. If spring can come, if things can be different, how can you bear what your existence has been?

We are creatures of story.

I don't know how you humans ever get anything done, you ask so many questions.

They will heal anyway, with time. We...are strong. It takes more...to conquer us.Scars don't matter, little one. They are the marks of the battles we have won.

Scars don't matter, little one. They are the marks of the battles we have won.