When the Cranes Fly South Quotes

“A few quotes to entice you:

"I never used to do this, dwelling on things and getting myself all worked up, but every single part of my life is delicate now. I feel a sudden fondness for the old man in the mirror. It's not bloody easy, being human."

“Young folks today just aren’t right; they race about like they’ve only got a week left to live.”

“Abandon her? Which of us has been abandoned, I want to ask. You’re not the one stuck with a lifetime’s worth of memories in a body that’s slowly withering away.”

“How can it be better for me when it’s not what I want?’ My voice breaks. I’m so damn tired of everyone else deciding what’s best for me.”

“No one has ever told me that it’s normal for a person’s eyes to well up so easily as they age, for the tears to find a foothold in virtually every memory.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Young folks today just aren’t right; they race about like they’ve only got a week left to live.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“No one has ever told me that it’s normal for a person’s eyes to well up so easily as they age, for the tears to find a foothold in virtually every memory.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“How lucky we are to have each other”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Abandon her? Which of us has been abandoned, I want to ask. You’re not the one stuck with a lifetime’s worth of memories in a body that’s slowly withering away.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I had to stop taking my
rheumatism medication when I first started taking the pills for my heart.

‘When it really comes down to it, it’s not a hard choice between your
heart and your joints, is it?’ the locum doctor had asked with a smile.

Dying of a heart attack probably wouldn’t be a bad way to go, I had time
to think, before he interrupted my thoughts.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“My mother taught me all the important things in life. About dogs and animals, things I couldn’t have lived without.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“There comes a day when life on earth ends for all of us. That’s just how it is,”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“But the idea that you probably understood more about life than I ever did stays with me.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Strange, isn’t it,’ he says, heading back through to the kitchen. I assume he means it’s strange what you can remember, and I agree. It’s also strange how much has been lost in you. Our entire life together. Still, I like to believe there must be something left. Memories that rise to the surface in your dreams. Images flickering by from time to time, as you’re looking out of the window. Then again, maybe I only feel that way because the alternative is too painful.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“My ears strain for the sound of claws on the floor, for a soft yawn. For the sound of your knitting needles, gently clicking together. But all I can hear is the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the clock.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“We used to sit here like this together, you and me, getting lost in the flames. We were similar in that regard. Never quite felt at home if there wasn’t a fire. There were days when a whole morning might pass without us noticing. We probably had the radio on, and you were almost certainly busy making something. ‘Time’s strange, isn’t it,’ I say after a while. She meets my eye but doesn’t speak. ‘Sometimes it moves so slowly, and then suddenly…’ I move my hand as fast as I can, demonstrating the way that twenty years of my life just happened.
‘That’s the sort of thing we don’t think about as children,’ says the priest. ‘We just were, you know?”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I try to think of something to say, but I can’t find the right words, so I look down at my hands instead. Talking about you is too hard. What is there to say? When the carers first started coming over, a couple of them insisted on asking and talking about you all the time. They said it must be tough on me that you were sick, and I never knew what to say but yes. It always created such an awkward atmosphere, and I just wanted them to go. To be left alone.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“It is what it is, you know?’ I say again, though the words stick in my throat. ‘And it’ll happen when it happens.’
‘I guess it will,’ he says, letting out a deep sigh.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I feel the urge to get up, to thump the table and tell him I’ll do whatever the hell I want. That I’m the captain of this ship. But I don’t, because I’m not the captain. I’m a useless lump who’s been tied to the mast in a storm.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“In some ways, I’ll live on through Ellinor. One day, she might tell her kids about you, about me. I wonder what she’ll say.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“can almost always escape into sleep. It’s the place where everything is still as it should be, where I still have a say.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“It’s not bloody easy, being human.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“There’s nothing that compares to that, to raising a child.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Your brain isn’t the only thing the dementia has changed.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Despite all that, it never disappeared entirely, that desire to have him look at me. A look that said: good job, Bo.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Time’s strange, isn’t it,’ I say after a while. She meets my eye but doesn’t speak. ‘Sometimes it moves so slowly, and then suddenly …’ I move my hand as fast as I can, demonstrating the way that twenty years of my life just happened. ‘That’s the sort of thing we don’t think about as children,’ says the priest. ‘We just were, you know?”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“It’s always there, the Sixten-shaped hole. A nothingness that has amplified the emptiness you left behind. It’s strange, but when Hans took Sixten I started missing you even more. Almost as though it was you he’d taken. My ears strain for the sound of claws on the floor, for a soft yawn. For the sound of your knitting needles, gently clicking together. But all I can hear is the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the clock.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“You’re not the one stuck with a lifetime’s worth of memories in a body that’s slowly withering away.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“The last of the snow only melted a few days ago”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“my wheezing words don’t have much impact anymore. They drop like dead birds from the sky”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I hold my own gaze in the mirror and try to shake off the worries. I never used to do this”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I’m not a captain. I’m a bundle that’s been lashed to the mast in a storm.”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“Which of us has been abandoned”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South

“I can almost always escape into sleep. It’s the place where everything is still as it should be”
― Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South