Top 80 Jenny Downham Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Hold my hand. Don’t let go.”

— Jenny Downham

2. “Keep breathing. Just keep doing it. It’s easy. In and out.”

— Jenny Downham

3. “I want to die in my own way. It’s my illness, my death, my choice. This is what saying yes means.”

— Jenny Downham

4. “I love you. It hurts more than anything ever has, but I do. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t. Don’t you ever say it again!”

— Jenny Downham

5. “Life is made up of a series of moments, each one a journey to the end.”

— Jenny Downham

6. “I want you to be with me in the dark. To hold me. To keep loving me. To help me when I get scared. To come right to the edge and see what’s there.”

— Jenny Downham

7. “I want to live before I die. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

— Jenny Downham

8. “Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.”

— Jenny Downham

9. “We make patterns, we share moments.”

— Jenny Downham

10. “Don’t pretend to care. I don’t need you as an anesthetic.”

— Jenny Downham

11. “Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much.”

— Jenny Downham

12. “Should we say something?’ Cal asks. ‘Goodbye, bird?’ I suggest. He nods. ‘Goodbye, bird. Thank you for coming. And good luck.”

— Jenny Downham

13. “You changed the rules of the universe when you fell in love with the enemy.”

— Jenny Downham

14. “We make patterns, we share moments. Sometimes, I think I’m the only one to see it.”

— Jenny Downham

15. “If I learnt anything at all about terminal illness in my research, it’s that the experience is different for everyone. I do believe that life becomes concentrated when it’s boundaried and that death is the biggest boundary of all.”

— Jenny Downham

16. “I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he’d look at me the way boys do in films, as if I’m beautiful.”

— Jenny Downham

17. “Humans are made from nuclear ash of dead stars.”

— Jenny Downham

18. “I made a fatal error thinking he could save me.”

— Jenny Downham

19. “Adam strokes my head, my face, he kisses my tears. We are blessed. Let them all go. The sound of a bird flying low across the garden. Then nothing. Nothing. A cloud passes. Nothing again. Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Moments. All gathering towards this one.”

— Jenny Downham

20. “Was this love? Because it hurt. It was like a bit of glass stuck somewhere important – his heart or his head, and it was throbbing.”

— Jenny Downham

21. “Bye, Tess. haunt me if you like. I don’t mind.”

— Jenny Downham

22. “She’d never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope, or kissed a boy whose name she didn’t know, and yet in the last few days, she’d done all these things.”

— Jenny Downham

23. “If you want a girl to like you, you have to listen like a woman and love like a man.”

— Jenny Downham

24. “It’s a shame i can’t be there myself – i like parties. Text me if you think of any good hymns!”

— Jenny Downham

25. “Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen. If you miss someone so desperately that it wrecks your insides, you say their name over and over until you conjure then. It’s called sympathetic magic and you just have to believe in it to make it work.”

— Jenny Downham

26. “Then she says, ‘I love you.’ Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.”

— Jenny Downham

27. “I’m here, Tess. I’m right here, holding your hand. Adam’s here, too, he’s sitting on the other side of the bed. And Cal. Mum’s on her way, she’ll be just a minute. We all love you, Tessa. We’re all right here with you.”

— Jenny Downham

28. “I love you. I love you. I send this message through my fingers and into his, up his arm and into his heart. Hear me. I love you. And I’m sorry to leave you.”

— Jenny Downham

29. “Statement: A girl and a boy jump into a river. The boy swims over to the girl and says, “God, it’s cold.” Question: What’s the probability they will kiss?”

— Jenny Downham

30. “Don’t think you have to be good because you’re the only one left. Be as bad as you like.”

— Jenny Downham

31. “When I first saw Ellie, I knew it was her – she was my fantasy. I didn’t want it to be true, but every time I met her it was obvious, and the funny thing was that she was better than the fantasy, like I got more stuff than I’d imagined.”

— Jenny Downham

32. “Moments. All gathering towards this one.”

— Jenny Downham

33. “Parents don’t know their children at all. No one knows anyone, in fact.”

— Jenny Downham

34. “I’m here. Soon I won’t be. Zoey’s baby is here. Its pulse tick-ticking. Soon it won’t be. And when Zoey comes out of that room, having signed on the dotted line, she’ll be different. She’ll understand what I already know- that death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between you teeth.”

— Jenny Downham

35. “She’ll understand what I already know – that death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between your teeth.”

— Jenny Downham

36. “It was strange how words meant something when they came out of your mouth. Inside your head they were safe and silent, but once they were outside, people grabbed hold of them.”

— Jenny Downham

37. “I don’t want to go into a fridge at an undertaker’s. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.”

— Jenny Downham

38. “I want a magician with a cloak and wand, or a knight with a sword, someone fearless.”

— Jenny Downham

39. “It’s as if a child with a brush and too much enthusiasm has been set free with a tin of black paint inside me.”

— Jenny Downham

40. “I don’t think words reach people. Maybe nothing does.”

— Jenny Downham

41. “Je veux vivre avant de mourir.”

— Jenny Downham

42. “Instructions for Adam Look after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keyes. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible.”

— Jenny Downham

43. “She breathed her mantra – fire, earth, water, air – and told herself that the elements were older and stronger than any human and that these girls were insignificant, and one day they’d all be dust.”

— Jenny Downham

44. “Every few years we disappear, Zoey. All our cells are replaced by others. Not a single bit of me is the same as when I was last in this room.”

— Jenny Downham

45. “The inside of the door is glossy white. A total re-paint. I touch it with my fingers, but it stays the same. It’s so bright it makes the room waver at the edges. Every few years we disappear.”

— Jenny Downham

46. “I miss him as soon as he goes. When he isn’t with me, I think I made him up.”

— Jenny Downham

47. “The light is heart-breaking.”

— Jenny Downham

48. “I’m me and you’re you, and all of them out there are them. And we’re all so different and equally unimportant.”

— Jenny Downham

49. “Why do I feel like you’re not on my side anymore? Please don’t give up on me.”

— Jenny Downham

50. “I’ve always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don’t.”

— Jenny Downham