Jennifer Ryan > Quotes

“If we don't think about our death until we die, how can we decide how we want to live?”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“Human nature defeats me sometimes, how greed and spite can lurk so divisively around the utmost courage and sacrifice.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“Then I looked out onto the horizon myself and realized that loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can. Or disappear into it.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“I took a deep breath of the syrupy sweetness of summer, suffused with bees and birds, and I thought to myself how beautiful this world can be. How lucky we are to be here, to be part of it, for however long we have.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“And I realized that this is what it's like to be an adult, learning to pick from a lot of bad choices and do the best you can with that dreadful compromise. Learning to smile, to put your best foot forward, when the world around you seems to have collapsed in its entirety, become a place of isolation, a sepia photograph of its former illusion.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“You need to find where you fit in this world, where you are happiest, where you can make a difference. And don’t be afraid of change.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“A sense of responsibility— or was it guilt?— hung over me, that I was in some way at fault because of cowering to all these pompous men all these years, when I should have had the bravery to reclaim my own mind. That if we women had done this years ago, before the last war, before this one, we’d be in a very different world.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“My grief is only equal to what I had that was lost, and if my sorrow is immeasurable, it is because the depth of our love, our world, and the joy we created, was so immense on the other side of the balance. I would not be without it for all the world.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“The most painful part of living is the fact that little by little, our family and friends leave us, and then, in the end, it is our turn. We all have to say goodbye to everything we’ve ever known.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“Grief feels a lot like fear. We’re afraid of it taking us over. But we owe it to ourselves, to those we have lost, to let grief in. Only then can we start to remember them with a cheer in our heart, a cheer for them and all that they were.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Spies of Shilling Lane

“Sometimes the magic of life is beyond thought. It’s the sparkle of intuition, of bringing your own personal energy into your music.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“We have prayer enough to light up the whole universe, like a thousand stars breathing life into our deepest fears.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“I sometimes wonder if we need to understand where we came from to feel our way forward. How can you expect a plant to grow if you cut off its roots?”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Spies of Shilling Lane

“In any case, bees know that everything will work itself out. You have to remember that. Whatever happens in life, everything will be all right in the end.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“In a good family, you're loved, simply, for being you, and whatever happens, wherever you go, you will always know that you are loved. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, how beautiful, or how rich. The only thing that matters is that you’re you and that you belong, and that’s what I’ve missed.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle

“loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“She said that she didn’t mind the thought of death. That realizing you’re going to die actually makes life better as it’s only then that you decide to live the life you really want to live, not the one everyone else wants you to live. And to thoroughly enjoy every minute.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“Mrs. Quince had never been married herself, her title simply following the convention for senior staff to be known as “Mrs.” regardless that most of them remained single, wedded to their work whether they liked it or not.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can. Or”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“Mrs. Quince was sipping the stock. “Taste this, Nell.” She beckoned her over. “Your sadness, my dear child—you’ve let it affect your cooking. All that upset inside you, it can’t be good. You have to try to be content, not to let those thoughts in.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“We are as strong as the snakes, as fierce as the wolves, and as free as the stars.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“She is so excruciatingly well-meaning it makes me want to plunge her long face into a barrel of ale to perk her up.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“The whole of Opera Square was a colossal fire, larger than any I’d ever seen. Young men were shouting and chanting, throwing books into the flames. It was terrifying, monstrous, these people thinking they could obliterate history and culture and reinvent it the way it suited them. My father wanted us to see it so that we could understand what was coming.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Underground Library

“It means that you love and are loved, whoever you are.” Her eyes glazed over. “And you know you’re not on your own.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“Men can have freedom and children, can’t they? They can be artists or pilots and be fathers, too. It’s women that have to make the choice between two of the most basic desires: a career or a family.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“He got into the van and opened the window to wave, and then, as it revved up and pulled away, his lips touched the palm of his hand and he blew me a kiss, something he hasn't done since he was a child. It was as if on the edge of manhood he, too, remembered everything we had shared, that he was the man who was still, in his heart, my little boy, late for school.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“It will surprise you what people can do, especially if we go to war. Everyone will be looking the other way. No one will see what is happening under their very noses because they will not want to.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Underground Library

“I never wanted to be in a war.” He opened his hands and looked at them. “These hands are for cooking, for serving, not for fighting.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front

“It’s not about winning. It’s about finding humanity in the face of this war. It’s about finding hope when everything around us is collapsing. Including my own precious home.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

“One thing I’ve learned through this is that family is incredibly precious. Other things may change us, but we start and end life with our family, whether it’s the one we’re born with or one of our own making. It means that you love and are loved, whoever you are.” Her eyes glazed over. “And you know you’re not on your own.”
― Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front