NLMG Quotes

"…the people out there were different from us students: they could have babies from sex."

(C7, infertility)

"…we were pretty confused about this whole idea around sex."

(C8, confused about sex)

"…every now and again, I get these really strong feelings when I want to have sex."

(C15, sexual desire)

"Tommy burst into thunderous bellowing…"

(C1, humanity, Tommy)

"…she'd have to glare furiously at him, like they were in a play and he'd forgotten his lines."

(C10, Kathy describing Ruth trying to get Tommy to do the motions copied from TV)

"…her face… had more than a hint of Ruth about it."

(C14, description of Ruth's possible)

"We all wonder about our model."

(C15, wondering about models)

So you are in love. Deeply in love. Is that what you're saying to me?"

(C21, knowing you're in love)

"If we're just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons?”

(C22, purpose of Hailsham lessons)

"you'd get some insight into who you were deep down…"

(C12, purpose of model searching)

"[arts] she said…they revealed your soul."

(C15, what arts reveal)

"How you were regarded at Hailsham… had to do with how good you were at 'creating'."

(C2, influence of arts in status)

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"…there was something sweet, even vulnerable about each of them."

(C16, vulnerability of Tommy's animals)

"…they looked laboured, almost like they'd been copied. [we were too late]"

(C20, Tommy's animals after being a donor)

"'Because your art will display your souls!'"

(C21, what they think art will do)

"…we did it to prove you had souls at all."

(C22, reason for the Gallery)

"Didn't we all dream from time to time about one of the guardians bending the rules and doing something special for us?”

(C5, dream of bending the rules)

"… especially now Ruth's gone, it's become one of my most precious possessions."

(C6, Kathy on the tape Ruth gave her to replace the Never Let Me Go one)

"Quite right, Kathy, we're a couple, like you say. And if you must intrude…"

(C10, Ruth about Kathy's concern about her treatment of Tommy)

"I'll stay with Kath. If we're splitting, then I'll stay with Kath."

(C14, when they're looking for Ruth's possible)

"…drifting apart then finding ourselves side by side again, maybe competing for the same box of bric-a-brac in a dusty corner lit up by a shaft of sun."

(C15, Tommy and Kathy looking for the tape)

"I was pleased by the notion that Ruth wasn't taking the animals seriously, and everything that implied."

(C16, Kathy on Ruth's attitude towards the animals)

"He says he's already told you. Ages ago. But now, very kindly, he's allowing me to share in it too."

(C16, Ruth being annoyed about Tommy telling Kathy about his animals)

"But I know he doesn't see you like, you know, a proper girlfriend."

(C17, Ruth's response to Kathy confronting her about how they reacted to Tommy's animals)

"It should have been you two. [..] Put right what I messed up for you."

(C19, Ruth on keeping Tommy and Kathy apart)

"…we no longer shrank from the subject of donations…"

(C7, growing up and changing thoughts about the donations)

"It was always stuff like that at breakfast, never who you'd had sex with the night before…"

(C10, changing conversations in the Cottages)

"A look had appeared in Tommy's eyes… that belonged to the Tommy who'd had to be barricaded inside a classroom while he kicked over desks. Then the look faded…"

(C13, Tommy moving past the rage he used to have)

"I was now one of the ones leaving…"

(C17, Kathy becoming a leaver)

"I never appreciated in those days the sheer effort Ruth was making to move on, to grow up and leave Hailsham behind."

(C11, Ruth trying to grow up)

"it was mainly us newcomers who talked about 'dream futures' that winter" (older ones would leave the room)

(C13, veterans about the dream futures)

"…they tend to blur together as a kind of golden time…"

(C7, golden time of Hailsham years)

"I've got the impression of things changing rapidly around then, like day moving into night."

(C7, growing out of hailsham years)

"…or maybe for two or three students to come bursting into the barn…"

(C11, Kathy stuck in the past at Cottages)

"the ties binding us to our old crowd were fraying."

(C16, Kathy mourning the change)

"…we hugged… as a way of affirming Hailsham, the fact that it was still there in both our memories."

(C18, Laura and Kathy)

"…memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly."

(C23, Kathy on memories)

"I lost Ruth, I lost Tommy, but I won't lose my memories of them."

(C23, Kathy, on memories of Tommy and Ruth)

"I kept worrying that one of the strings would come unravelled and a single balloon would sail off up into that cloudy sky."

(C18, Kathy and the clown's balloons)

"[Hailsham closing] was like someone coming along with a pair of shears and snipping the balloon strings”

(C18, Kathy on how she felt adrift after leaving hailsham - balloons)

"I might now have to act on [a lot of things]… or else let them go forever."

(C18, kathy on feeling like she's running out of time)

"I waited to see a flash of the old Laura… but none of that came."

(C18, kathy missing the old laura)

"I think I sensed how beyond that line, there was something harder and darker and I didn't want that."

(C5, Kathy talking about the woods)

"…we were different from the normal people outside…"

(C6, Kathy knowing they're not normal)

"Your lives are set out for you.”

(C7, Miss Lucy on the clones' futures)

"Look down in the toilet, that's where you'll find where we all came from."

(C14, Ruth on the clones' models)

"… I could see rubbish floating by under my window… but…it was nice and tranquil, just like it is in here."

(C19, Ruth's dream about Hailsham)

"It wasn't him on that table, clinging to life. How would he know?"

(C19, on Chrissie's death)

"you must realise how much worse things once were."

(C22, Miss Emily on the clones and what they must realize)

"Suddenly there were all these new possibilities laid before us… This was what the world noticed the most, wanted the most."

(C22, Miss emily on the possibilities of the clones)

"I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. [..] But a harsh, cruel world."

(C22, Madame on a new world coming)

"And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world…and pleading, never to let her go."

(C22, Madame on Kathy's dance)

"Poor creatures.”

(C21, Madame to Kathy and Tommy)

"…it seemed to me that these dark byways of the country existed just for the likes of us [and the best for everyone else]”

(C22, returning from Madame and Miss Emily)

"You were lucky pawns."

(C22, pawns)

NLMG Chapter 6

Kathy listens to (then loses) the mixtape, Madame walks in on her, and Norfolk is first introduced

NLMG Chapter 7

Miss Lucy gives her speech about the students' futures and the clones start to acknowledge the donations

NLMG Chapter 10

first chapter at the Cottages, Kathy and Ruth clash over moving on

NLMG Chapter 13

They go to see Ruth's possible, and deferrals are first brought up

NLMG Chapter 16

Ruth confronts Kathy and Tommy about not telling her about the mixtape they found in Norfolk or Tommy's animals

NLMG Chapter 19

Kathy, Tommy, Ruth visit the boat; Ruth gives them Madame's address and dies; Kathy and Tommy decide to get a deferral

NLMG Chapter 22

Miss Emily explains Hailsham to Kathy and Tommy; there are no deferrals; Madame explains her thoughts on Kathy + the mixtape