The End of the Day Quotes

“Brexit promised three hundred and fifty million a week for the NHS, they promised controls on immigration, they promised an end to the housing crisis, to the education crisis, to the economic crisis, to the …”

“What I don’t understand is that when the British public voted to name a research vessel Boaty McBoatface, the government said no. But when we voted to commit cultural and economic seppuku, the powers-that-be didn’t seem to have a fucking clue …”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“You must choose the life you live at the time you live it.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Until you have not been free, you cannot understand what freedom means.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Death flies because it is the modern way of things but doesn't particularly enjoy it, except for occasionally, when he rides up front with the pilot.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“We all die. We don't have to live our lives fearing it.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Everyone who dies was once a child; every child once had a dream of something else; every child must die. It is important to remember the human behind the story, and I find it … good.” “I see. Less of an executioner, more of a … historian?”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Words are made by history, we build them and they change meaning through time, but the music they play...”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“All the bad publicity they brought down on us, yes, it came, and yes, it hurt us—for a day. That’s how long the dirt clung, maybe a bit less. Twitter, Facebook, TV and internet news—you know how long a story stays up on a news website these days, unless it’s about some celebrity scandal? Guess. Go on—guess. Three hours. That’s how much we hurt. And then the world turned, and someone tweeted something new, and everyone retweeted it and moved on, and nothing fucking changes. That’s the world. That’s people power. That’s all it fucking means.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“One day people will just say what they mean, and business will be conducted properly.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“We are fighting for a better land, we are fighting for freedom. We wish only to have hope again in our lives, to have a safe place for our mothers, our children. We wish for justice. We wish for holidays. We wish to go walking in the sea and eat ice cream. We wish for antibiotics when our brothers are sick. We wish for a job that finishes at six o’clock in the afternoon. We wish to pay rent, to cook food with our own hands, good food, to taste cinnamon again. We wish to decorate our homes, and smell fresh paint, and be proud of the lives we have built. We wish to practise our beliefs, piously and in peace. We wish to know our neighbours, and play simple games, and read books, and watch TV. Is this so much? Is this more than any man desires? Do you understand?”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“As a boy, I grew up in a time of invention, of aspiration and wonderful dreams, and to be a scientist, a doctor, an engineer—these things were considered the greatest paths man could take. We walked on the moon and the world as a collective creature breathed a sigh of wonderment and delight, one species, one dream, a dream of … or did I imagine it? Was I in fact living in a fantasy, in which I saw only what I wanted to see?”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“This is … this is nothing. Death comes, and the world turns, and that is how it always has been, and always will be. So forgive me for asking: why do you want to have this drink?” The”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Words, rolling on. Sometimes the Harbinger of Death hears these words, words of house prices and commutes and the price of pasta and the new washing machine and the difficulty of finding a place to dry your wet clothes, and they make him indescribably sad.

Tonight, for some reason, as he listens to a story of a life still being built, and speaks of the ending of all things, he is not afraid, and this world, which seemed to be only ashes, begins again to give him an extraordinary joy.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“When you have seen the whole world, the old words said, there is always Greenland left.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“sometimes he remembered, and sometimes he simply lived, and sometimes—very occasionally—he was okay with doing both.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Man is no more than the sum of his experience and his capacity to express these experiences to fellow man.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“War peers through the binoculars at the South China Sea, well wrapped up despite the high summer sun, and says, “Oh I can’t ever tell! It’s just another bloody damn bit of rock, if you ask me!” “But sir, if you look closely,” said the captain, “you will see that our people have put a flag on it.” “Oh!” War chuckles, patting his rolling belly within his coat. “Well, that’s something different, isn’t it?”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Charlie bought the tea because the man was cold, and the tea was hot. He is not in the appointments list.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“The bed was hotel normal.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Does that make sense? Does that answer your question? … I’m not going to lie, Charlie, it answers the questions, but is piss for my paperwork.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“I mean, that’s what music is anyway, you hear yourself,”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“It was raining when the Harbinger of Death took the 176 bus to the Longview Estate.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“What do you do for vegetables?” The captain laughed. “We eat fish!”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“...so I'm not going to be good at answering these binary questions, you see. Because sometimes I am so terrified of getting out of bed, because I don't know what the world will bring, or what I'll see. I am terrified because there is so much darkness out there, there is such cruelty, I am terrified when the phone rings that someone will tell me ... someone I love will have died or the world I thought I knew will be gone for ever and I dread it, I dread the day, I dread what it will bring.

And sometimes I cannot wait for the sun to rise, because the world is full of people, of human beings singing their songs and telling their stories, of lie and passion, glory and wonder, and Death is not a thing to fear, but is life's mirror reminding us to live, live, live, and I am honoured, I am so honoured, to travel the world and see the world is a place of people, and to be alive with them, living with them, even at the end.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“What's the difference between English football and a tea bag?
The tea bag stays in the cup longer.

What does the cheese say to itself in the morning?
Halloumi!”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“In the Amazon, you may walk for days without seeing a tree; in Beijing, the air is the colour of a bruise. Three thousand miles of litter floats in the Atlantic Ocean, plastic bags and old nappies, bumping against the side of the ships... I sat before a committee in Brussells and they said, ‘What do you want us to do about it? If we change now, we’ll destroy our own economies,’ and I said, ‘You have destroyed your own world”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“Q4: Man is no more than the sum of his experience and his capacity to express these experiences to fellow man. Discuss. (500 words)”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“perfidious”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“humanity has changed into something new and it is brutal. It is ugly”
― Claire North, The End of the Day

“A funeral procession, the women scream until they fall down in a faint, the men hold them up, the boys cry silently sand swear to take up arms in their father's name. It is the same funeral procession that their fathers saw, their fathers before them, and their grandfathers unto generations unknown, where the same vow was taken.”
― Claire North, The End of the Day