Nostalgia

Quote

Character

Chapter

“I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, and maybe even call.”

Kathy H.

23

“Looking back now, it’s funny to think we got so worked up, because usually the Sales were a big disappointment................................ But the point was, I suppose,

we’d all of us in the past found something at a Sale, something that had become special. and so

however much we tried to pretend otherwise, we couldn’t ever shake off the old feelings of hope and excitement.”

Kathy H.

4

“Driving around the country now, I still see things that will remind me of Hailsham. I might pass the corner of a misty field, or see part of a large house in the distance as I come down the side of a valley, even a particular arrangement of popular trees up on a hillside, and I’ll think: "Maybe that’s it! I’ve found it! This actually is Hailsham!"

Kathy H.

1

“The earlier years—the ones I’ve just been telling you about—they tend to blur into each other as a kind of golden time, and when I think about them at all, even the not-so-great things, I can’t help feeling a sort of glow.”

Kathy H.

7

“I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them.”

Kathy H.

23