A Matter of Life and Death Quotes

“I’ve come close enough a few times to know there’s no good way to go. Some ways are better than others, of course, but however it happens, the end result will always be the same. I guess all you can do is try to be happy and make the most of your days, so when the time comes, the people you leave behind can rest happy knowing you lived your best life.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“It’s not an act of bitterness. It’s an act of self-preservation. There’s simply no way to carry on with my life as it is now if I have to remember how much better things used to be.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Well,’ my mother says the next day as I arrive by her bedside with a fresh pot of tea. ‘What should we do?’

I look at her, puzzled. ‘Do?’ Until now, I thought we’d spend our time together doing very little, or nothing at all, and that I’d be miserable, although I’d hide it and deny it. I imagined, in other words, that we’d see one another, as we always have, across a divide.

‘The rain seems to be holding off for now,’ my mother continues, glancing out of her window. ‘Perhaps we could take a walk in the garden?’

‘You think you can walk?’

‘No. But there’s a wheelchair on the back porch. Do you feel fit enough to push me around?’

‘Well,’ I say, brightly. ‘That would certainly make a nice change.’

My mother snaps her head around and glowers at me. Confused, I replay the final lines of conversation in my head, then panic. ‘No, no,’ I say, backtracking. ‘I meant a nice change from being holed up in the bedroom.’

My mother continues to regard me with her penetrating stare. ‘Of course, you did,’ she says, drily.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“So, how are you enjoying London?’ she asks me.
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I tell her, ‘Despite being noisy and polluted, and chock-full of pigeons with warty feet.’
Emma grimaces. ‘Doesn’t sound so good.’
‘No. They get infections, from all those hours standing in their own crap. Still, they seem happy enough, so whatever.’
Emma bites her lip, stifling a smile. ‘I meant your life there generally.’
‘Oh! Well, that’s not so bad. I mean, it’s not perfect but, you know, I’m alright. I have my home. And my health.’
‘And your feet,’ Emma says, helpfully.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“It burns the roof of my mouth, but I don’t mind. It’s a relief to feel something palpable, something immediate and aching to distract me from everything else, even if it’s only for a moment.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“So, is this par for the course right now?’ I ask, when I’ve found my breath again.

‘The complaining?’ Rose asks, and blows out her cheeks. ‘Honestly, it’s relentless. Last weekend, he screamed for half the morning because there was a bump in his socks. Yesterday, he had an hour-long tantrum because the sausage kept falling out of his sandwich.’

‘It can’t always be like this.’

‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Truly, I can understand those mothers who get arrested for throwing their kids against a wall.’

I give her a look.

‘I’m not saying I’d do it, but I can understand the impulse. You just want to stop all the noise.’

‘I wouldn’t share that thought with anyone else if I were you.’

Rose laughs. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I’m just thinking out loud.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“He reaches out and lays a hand gently on my shoulder. ‘You were always a good pal, Tom.’

‘Yeah, well. Right back atcha.’ I give Mike’s knee a friendly squeeze, then turn my head towards him, and he looks so intensely grateful for the compliment I’ve just paid him that my heart almost breaks. But I’m happy, too – happy beyond measure, really – and as we sit side by side, staring out at the glowing Milky Way, I’m filled with a sense of companionship that’s been missing from my life for so long that it feels almost alien to me.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Daryll gives me the once over, as though it would be a waste of eyesight to look at me twice. ‘Who’s this?’ he asks Emma.

‘It’s Tom,’ I say, standing up from my chair. ‘Tom Halliday. We were at school together back in –’

‘I know who you are,’ Daryll says, leaving me to wonder why he bothered asking in the first place.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“It’s been a decade or more since I set eyes on Daryll, and it’s immediately clear that the intervening years have been less than kind to him. He’s prematurely stooped, with a ruddy complexion and a nest of black hair that’s going thin at the crown. His once-proud nose has been broken at least once, its bulbous tip stained with a frantic network of purple veins that run through his skin like rivers. But then he’s three inches taller than me, and at least six inches bulkier all round, so in some ways he’s actually rather impressive, a sort of angry bulldozer on legs.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“You have a plaster on your head,’ my mother says.

‘Oh!’ I say, flushed with relief. ‘Yes. I walked into a table.’

‘With your head?’

Ah. Good point. ‘Actually, it was a door.’

My mother smiles thinly. ‘Of course, it was.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“You don’t fancy a lock in, do you?’ Mike asks hopefully.

Sharon touches a hand to her forehead. ‘Mike, I’ve been here since two o’clock this afternoon. I would rather shit in my hands and clap than stay here a second longer than I have to.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“I’m not surprised to find Dad and I tiptoeing around the edge of conversation. After all, we’ve never spent a great deal of time discussing affairs of the heart. I had classmates at school who had startlingly candid exchanges with their fathers, frequently settling down on their living room sofa to confer on relationships, sex, drugs and mental health. The nearest my own father ever came to opening up about relationships came a few weeks before my twelfth birthday, when I awoke to find a copy of ‘The Joy of Sex’ by my bedside. Inside, Dad had written Any questions, just ask! in a jaunty script, but I think we both sensed that at least one of us would die of embarrassment if we were ever to have the conversation, so I never followed up on the offer and, mercifully, neither did Dad.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Crawford and I are enjoying a hotly-contested game of tiddlywinks when Dad arrives to announce that dinner is ready. We make our way through to the dining room and take our seats at the old mahogany table, which is full of food. We all spend the obligatory few seconds oohing and aahing over the wonderful job Dad’s done, before tucking in.

Within five minutes, the room is alive with conversation. To my left, Sophie is trying to decide which fictional world she would most like to live in, while at the other end of the table, Pete is holding forth to my parents about something that appears to involve salt, pepper, and both his forks. Across from me, Crawford is complaining loudly that the sauce on his pasta’s the wrong colour, and Rose is rattling off the impressive list of things that’ll be taken away from him if he doesn’t eat it. Ellie, bless her, is oblivious. She’s planted in her booster seat beside Rose, and most of her pasta is on her face or in her lap.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“A couple of hours later, I have a pretty good buzz going and the atmosphere in the room has become almost festive. Sophie’s holding court at the table, telling funny stories to me and Emma and Sharon, who, in the absence of any other customers, has made herself comfortable on a stool and left us to fetch our own drinks. Mike’s standing by the jukebox, putting together a playlist of old-time classics that’s already too long for us to get through before closing time. A few feet away, a decidedly wobbly Amy is standing in the middle of the floor with a pint-glass of wine and belting out the Bonnie Tyler classic Total Eclipse of the Heart. She’s getting the words wrong but singing it with gusto nonetheless.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“On Friday, Rose invites Sophie and I around to the house. We arrive at eight, armed with some fancy wine Dad handed us from his cellar. Unsurprisingly, it’s Rose who answers the door. Crawford’s there, too, talking like he’s done ten lines of cocaine.

‘Unco Tom, you missed what happened today because I was at the table with the naked sand and I was making a big cake and then I gave it to Mummy and I said “eat a bit of this cake” and she did, she ate a bit, but it was really yucky because it was made of the naked sand!’

‘Kinetic sand,’ Rose says, ‘It’s called kinetic sand.’

But Crawford’s way too wired to listen. ‘And then after lunch Mummy was changing Ellie’s nappy and we took Ellie’s nappy off and Ellie farted and a poo fell out and went on the floor!’

‘Darling,’ Rose interrupts, ‘I’m not sure everyone likes that story as much as you do.’

Perhaps not, but it’s absolutely slayed Crawford, who’s laughing so hard that he’s having to gasp between phrases. ‘And… and it was… so smelly… Mummy had to… open the window!”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Before too long, the bottle of whisky lies empty on the grass in front of us and Mike appears to have talked himself out. In the silence that follows, Mike begins hiccupping with the most intense seriousness and mental concentration, and I realise that he’s thoroughly, disgracefully drunk.

‘Come on,’ I say, helping him to his feet. ‘I think we’ve had enough excitement for one evening.’

I manage to get him up, but then he sways up against the castle wall, and does not seem keen to move.

‘D’you think, perchance, we could call a taxi?’

‘We’re half a mile from any road, Mike. Come on. Get moving.’

‘A horse!’ Mike shouts. ‘My kingdom for a horse.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I say. ‘Come along now. Here’s my arm. Got my arm? Got it?’

‘Or a donkey,’ Mike says. ‘My kingdom for a donkey.’

‘Oh, come on,’ I say. ‘Grab my arm.’

‘Arm of the law!’ Mike shouts. ‘Quite right, Colonel. Hup. two three four. And March!’

But Mike, in spite of saying this, does not himself march. ‘D’you think February can March?’ he asks, turning to me. ‘I don’t know, but I think April May.’ He follows this with a snort of laughter so violent that it propels him away from the wall. I catch him and, taking advantage of the forward momentum, begin the journey homewards. ‘My kingdom,’ Mike says, returning to his earlier point. ‘Wouldn’t get much for it now, state the country’s in.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Good point.’

‘Tories,’ Mike says. ‘String ‘em up.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I say, soothingly. ‘Tories.’

‘Bunch of crim’nals,’ Mike says, misanthropically. ‘String ‘em all up.’

And with that, he drops his head and is silent for the remainder of the journey.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“The village hall is already packed by the time we arrive. Myreton’s local band, the appropriately-named Unbeerables, is on stage, playing covers of old rock songs, as they have at every party for the past thirty years, to a handful of spectacularly uninterested men in varying stages of intoxication. Right now, they’re about half-way through Bohemian Rhapsody, and while it’s not a song generally associated with Halloween, the way they’re murdering the operatic passage really is genuinely shocking, so credit where credit’s due, I suppose.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Like many other things, I blame my aversion to Halloween on my mother. My earliest Halloween memories are of my mother locking the front gates and plunging the house into darkness to deter any guisers who were stupid enough to think of calling on us. A few years later, when Sophie and I began guising ourselves, my mother always made the absolute minimum effort required to justify sending us onto the streets in search of sweets. The results were horrific. Every year, she’d throw a black bin liner over me, colour in my nose with her mascara, and attach a sock she’d stuffed with newspapers to my bottom. Then she’d declare the costume complete and go back to ignoring me completely. Even at age seven, I was aware of how ridiculous I looked. Sometimes I decided to throw on some additional make-up or attach a couple of ears to my head just to avoid confusion, but that was hard work: most years, I just wrote ‘CAT!’ on a sheet of paper and pinned it to my chest for everyone to see. Sophie had less need to explain her identity to our neighbours, but her Ghost disguise – one sheet, two eye-holes – was another classic in the shite costume genre.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“And it’s true. There’s nothing in this world more difficult to mend than the pieces of a broken heart.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“There’s no need to look so glum,’ my mother says. ‘Cheer up a little, won’t you?’

When my mother gives an order, it’s best to follow without question. Lorraine Halliday is a woman the winds and tides obey.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, swallowing down my emotion. ‘I’ll be stronger.’

‘I should think so. These things happen when you get old, Tom. I’m no spring chicken, you know.’

‘You’re sixty-four,’ I say.

My mother considers this for a moment. ‘Well, I feel old.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death

“Our relationship became a Jenga tower, and one by one we began pulling out the pieces, the structure increasingly fragile. We argued furiously and relentlessly about everything, shouting insults that left us both hoarse the next morning. When, on the first Monday of April, I handed in my notice at work, the tower tumbled, blocks spilling everywhere. Two days later, Lena packed her bags and left the flat for good.”
― Andy Marr, A Matter of Life and Death