1.

“So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.”

2.

“What was so special about this song? Well, the thing was, I didn’t used to listen properly to the words; I just waited for that bit that went: ‘Baby, baby, never let me go…’ And what I’d imagine was a woman who’d been told she couldn’t have babies, who’d really, really wanted them all her life. Then there’s that sort of miracle and she has a baby, and she holds this baby very close to her and walks around singing: ‘Baby, never let me go…’ partly because she’s so happy, but also because she’s so afraid something will happen, that the baby will get ill or be taken away from her. Even at the time, I realised this couldn’t be right, that this interpretation didn’t fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn’t an issue with me. The sone was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.”

3.

“Tommy thought it possible the guardians had, throughout all our years at Hailsham, timed very carefully and deliberately everything they told us, so that we were always just too young to understand properly the latest piece of information. But of course we’d take it in at some level, so that before long all this stuff was there in our heads without us ever having examined it properly.”

4.

“But then again, when I think about it, there’s a sense in which that picture of us on that first day, huddled together in front of the farmhouse, isn’t so incongruous after all. Because maybe, in a way, we didn’t leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and—no matter how much we despised ourselves for it—unable quite to let each other go.”

5.

“The basic idea behind the possibles theory was simple, and didn’t provoke much dispute. It went something like this. Since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there must be, for each of us, somewhere out there, a model getting on with his or her life. This meant, at least in theory, you’d be able to find the person you were modeled from. That’s why, when you were out there yourself—in the towns, shopping centres, transport cafés—you kept an eye out for ‘possibles’—the people who might have been the models for you and your friends. […] all of us to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, you’d get some insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, you’d see something of what your life held in store.”

6.

“We all know it. We’re modeled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. Convicts, maybe, just so long as they aren’t psychos. That’s what we come from. We all know it, so why don’t we say it? A woman like that? Come on. Yeah, right, Tommy. A bit of fun. Let’s have a bit of fun pretending. That other woman in there, her friend, the old one in the gallery. Art students, that’s what we thought we were. Do you think she’d have talked to us like that if she’d known what we really were? What do you think she’d have said if we’d asked her? ‘Excuse me, but do you think your friend was ever a clone model?’ She’d have thrown us out. We know it, so me might as well just say it. If you want to look for possibles, if you want to do it properly, then you look in the gutter. You look in rubbish bins. Look down the toilet, that’s where you’ll find where we all came from.”

7.

“What I think […] is this. Suppose it’s true, what the veterans are saying. Suppose some special arrangement has been made for Hailsham students. Suppose two people say they’re truly in love, and they want extra time to be together. Then you see, Kath, there has to be a way to judge if they’re really telling the truth. That they aren’t just saying they’re in love, just to defer their donations. You see how difficult it could be to decide? Or a couple might really believe they’re in love, but it’s just a sex thing. Or just a crush. You see what I mean, Kath? It’ll be really hard to judge, and it’s probably impossible to get it right every time. But the point is, whoever decides, Madame or whoever it is, they need something to go on.”

8.

“Don’t you sometimes think […] you should have looked into it more? All right, you’d have been the first. The first one any of us would have heard of getting to do something like that. But you might have done it. Don’t you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you tried?”

9.

“That was the worst thing I did […] I’m not even asking you to forgive me about that. God, I’ve said all this in my head so many times, I can’t believe I’m really doing it. It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I was is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you.”

10.

“I came to believe that this rumour, it’s not just a single rumour. What I mean is, I think it’s one that gets created from scratch over and over. You go to the source, stamp it out, you’ll not stop it starting again elsewhere. […] for the few couples who get disappointed, the rest will never put it to the test anyway. It’s something for them to dream about, a little fantasy. What harm is there? But for the two of you, I can see this doesn’t apply. You are serious. You’ve thought carefully. You’ve hoped carefully. For students like you, I do feel regret. It gives me no pleasure at all to disappoint you. But there it is.”

11.

“Why did we take your artwork? Why did we do that? […] You said it was because your art would reveal what you were like. What you were like inside. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? well, you weren’t far wrong about that. We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.”

12.

“What he wanted to was to offer people the possibility of having children with enhanced characteristics. Superior intelligence, superior athleticism, that sort of thing. Of course, there’d been others with similar ambitions, but this Morningdale fellow, he’d taken his research much further than anyone before him, far beyond legal boundaries. Well, he was discovered, they put an end to his work and that seemed to be that. Except, of course, it wasn’t, not for us. As I say, it never became an enormous matter. But it did create a certain atmosphere, you see. It reminded people, reminded them of a fear they’d always had. It’s one thing to create students, such as yourselves, for the donation programme. But a generation of created children who’d take their place in society? Children demonstrably superior to the rest of us? Oh no. That frightened people. They recoiled from that.”

13.

“But I supposed, when it comes down to it, the central flaw was this. Our little movement, we were always too fragile, always too dependent on the whims of our supporters. So long as the climate was in our favor, so long as a corporation or a politician could see a benefit in supporting us, then we were able to keep afloat. But it had always been a struggle, and after Morningdale, after the climate changed, we had no chance. The world didn’t want to be reminded how the donation programme really worked. They didn’t want to think about you students, or about the conditions you were brought up in. In other words, my dears, they wanted you back in the shadows.”

14.

“Your life must now run the course that’s been set for it.”

15.

“I can see,” Miss Emily said, “that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in the world. People’s opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in the process.”

“It might be just some trend that came and went,” I said, “But for us, it’s our life.”

“Yes, that’s true. But think of it. You were better off than many who came before you. And who knows what those who come after you will have to face.”

16.

When I saw you dance that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn’t really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I’ve never forgotten.”