Human Remains Quotes

“Nobody can see pain. They have no frame of reference for pain that's happening to someone else. They can only see inactivity - which they interpret as laziness.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“You never realise what loneliness is until it creeps up on you - like a disease, it is, something that happens to you gradually.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“I dreamed of death the way previously I'd dreamed of the pain leaving me, and the way before that I'd dreamed of gardens and children and weekends away. Death was my elusive lover, treasured and longed for and jealously guarded, and always distant. Always out of reach.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species at that.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“I was a grown woman, an old woman, and while I still had all my marbles I wanted to be able to choose to finish this life that had become so wearing, so empty. But of course that’s not done, is it? If I wanted to end things, then I must be ill or depressed or something, and therefore I needed help to cope, help to find new ways of enjoying the world. This is how the young see it, from their position of complete and utter ignorance. I wished for someone to help me. I wished for someone I could trust who would make sure that it happened, that I wasn’t left half-dead—to make sure that I couldn’t change my mind.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“Maitland had associates who were known to be involved in organized crime in Briarstone and London. He’d been brought in for questioning on several occasions for different reasons; each time he’d given a “no comment” interview, or one where he stuck to one-word answers,”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“Good-bye. Good luck.” “You too.” I watched Sam walk away, and then I turned and pressed the button for the crossing, waiting for the traffic to stop so I could cross and go in to work.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“I can’t get access to all that,” I said. “I’ve tried.” “Isn’t there anything on the case files?” “There aren’t any case files. That’s the problem. These aren’t murders. They aren’t even, for the most part, suspicious deaths. They are just people who have died. Once they’ve been collected by the funeral directors they’re no longer a police matter. The families, if we can find them, are informed, and that’s the end of our involvement in it. Nothing is recorded; there’s no point. For the people who do have families, I have next to no information at all. It’s only the ones who are unclaimed that still remain of interest.” He was leaning forward in his seat, frowning. Listening. “You know it was me who”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“And then the purring began again—the goddamned cat—and I looked down to see her rolling on the carpet beside the dark mess, as if the smell were catnip to her, and not the stench of the putrefying bodily fluids of a decomposing corpse.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“I wasn’t worried, but I thought I should know something that didn’t seem to be there anymore. It was gone, whatever it was, fleeting and slippery like a fish darting through silky weeds. From”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“If people stop looking at you, do you cease to exist? Does it mean you're not a person any more? Does it mean you're already dead?”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“said there was a light on . . .” “Yes. In the dining”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains

“specifically instructed, moving from one model that”
― Elizabeth Haynes, Human Remains