A Heart That Works
Rob Delaney
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Whenever someone tells me they’re expecting their first baby and they’re nervous, I tell them the following: “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful. I am so happy for you. Listen, of course you’re nervous but here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that.”
“The growing number of politicians and newspaper-owners who aim to privatise the NHS need to fuck off ten times, then gargle a big bowl of diarrhoea. I pray that Vishnu purifies your heart in a dream tonight, or, failing that, that you fall down a deep well in February.”
“One thing that fucked me up badly was losing the callouses that built up on my fingers from operating his suction machine… After Henry died, those callouses began to fade away. I hated that. I hated it so much. Please let me have my little hard bumps on my fingers that I can rub and think of him. They reminded me of helping him breathe, which it was my privilege to do. I could touch them and know they were there because of him. They told me that I loved him and he needed me and that he was real.”
“Reflecting on his physical therapy reminds me that I’m not a fan of the “fighting” metaphor for cancer. I don’t think you fight it, or beat it. The effort I saw Henry expend, again and again, at the age of one, under such duress, suggests someone who could beat anything that can be beaten. Cancer’s pretty much going to do what it wants. Should it come for me, I hope I’ll just ride the wave.”
“In between Henry's birth and his death was, of course, his life. That was my favorite part.”
“If you’re reading this and work in private insurance or the American government, fuck off and fuck you, forever. In the words of David Lynch, “Fix your hearts or die.”
“I felt like I was being asked to find an individual lentil in a warehouse that a tornado had just torn through”
“Why don't you just leave open the possibility that others love you, whether you like it or not, and that the people who'd like you to stick around aren't, to a man, wrong.”
“There is no physical paradise where he’s waiting for me, and for that I’m glad. I have to imagine that would get boring after a couple of centuries, for him, for me. For you. Rather, I suspect I am a glass of water, and when I die, the contents of my glass will be poured into the same vast ocean that Henry’s glass was poured into, and we will mingle together forever. We won’t know who’s who. And you’ll get poured in there one day, too.”
“Since Henry’s death, I have focused any fundraising I’ve done on both Rainbow Trust and Noah’s Ark. I have not, as some might have suspected I’d do, done any fundraising for pediatric brain cancer. The reason for this is that I saw how far a pound (or a dollar) goes in helping kids who are definitely going to die, and their families—and it is astonishing. An hour with a Fiona or a Lucinda or a Kirsty brings immeasurable peace and joy to a child who is grappling each day with pain, frustration, boredom, and fear. It gives solace and bubbling happiness to the parents who are watching their child suffer day in and day out. I’m forty-five as I write this, and so far I haven’t seen a better or more instantly effective use of money.”
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Book Keywords:
depression, grief-and-loss, grief, hope, grief-quotes, suicide
