Chapter 1 Quotes (Never): Flashcards
“My name is Kathy H” / “they want me to go on for another eight months” / “they” / “they’ve been pleased with my work”
“being a complete waste of space” / “I’m not trying to boast” / “Okay, maybe I am boasting now” / “but it means a lot to me”
“hardly any of them have been classified as ‘agitated’”
“I know when to hang around and comfort them […] and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it”
“I get to pick and choose who I look after” / “she always chooses her own kind” / “it’s only for the last six they’ve let me choose”
“Carers aren’t machines” / “it wears you down”
“So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural”
“it feels just about right to be finishing at last come the end of the year”
“I started seeking out for my donors people from the past” / “people from Hailsham” / “when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind” / “but then there came a point when I just stopped resisting”
“What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood”
“with the drugs and the pain and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his”
“just how lucky we’d been”
“I still see things that will remind me of Hailsham” / “misty field” / “This actually is Hailsham!” / “then I see it’s impossible and I go on driving”
“the guardians were always telling us to be civilised”
“we might end up screaming with laughter, or in a furious row” (human)
“whatever the boys chose to do was pretty remote from us; whether we approved or not didn’t come into it”
“we relished the prospect of seeing Tommy get humiliated yet again”
“Or maybe I’m remembering it wrong” / “I did feel a little stab of pain” / “What I do remember is […]”
“His favourite polo shirt” - a statement of his identity/individuality as human
“he deserves what’s coming” / “Tommy was looking eagerly” / “the bright eager one at the start; the puzzled concern” / “the hurt and panic” / “left standing alone” / “thunderous bellowing” / “his face scarlet” / “we tried to start up a conversation about something else”
“He was just raving, flinging his limbs about, at the sky, at the wind, at the nearest fence post”
“we were starting to feel guilty” / “But there was no sign of a guardian, so we just kept swapping reasons why Tommy deserved everything he got” - COMPLICITY
“Tommy never even tried to be creative” / “he’s a layabout”
“Tommy wasn’t used to being disturbed in his rages” / “His arms were still flailing about, and he wasn’t to know I was about to put out my hand”
“I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know his feelings for the polo shirt” / “I said, before the silence got humiliating for him”
“But I’d had enough of him by now”
“Mad animal”
