How we cite our quotes:
Quote #1
We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me. (31.5)
We don't know about you, but we find this image both really sweet and devastatingly sad. Maybe we just really like hugging. Sure, there's nothing intrinsic about hugs that screams "love." You can hug people you don't like – your opponent in a boxing match, say, or your least-favorite relative. But there's certainly something in an embrace that signals a deep emotional connection. To imagine Christopher and his father touching fingertips seems like a terribly inadequate replacement.
Quote #2
But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere. (61.12)
There are a lot of passages in this book that suggest that Christopher has no understanding of love, and is unable to have affection for another person. But this passage express the essence of having love for another human being better than any number of hugs and kisses could possibly be.
Quote #3
But when you get married it is because you want to live together and have children, and if you get married in a church you have to promise that you will stay together until death do us part. And if you don't want to live together you have to get divorced and this is because one of you has done sex with somebody else or because you are having arguments and you hate each other and you don't want to live in the same house any more and have children. (67.100)
Okay, let's see… marriage. Want to live together? Check. Want to have children? Check. Stay together? Check. Monogamy? Check. Hmm, that's strange, aren't we missing something? Marriage… there's got to be something else. Oh, wait, that's right: LOVE! Right, that's at the heart of why people get married, yet Christopher makes no mention of it.
Quote #4
Then, when I've got a degree in Maths, or Physics, or Maths and Physics, I will be able to get a job and earn lots of money and I will be able to pay someone who can look after me and cook my meals and wash my clothes, or I will get a lady to marry me and be my wife and she can look after me so I can have company and not be on my own. (71.8)
Imagine equating a maid with a wife! Christopher doesn't make any distinction between the two. Either he doesn't understand romantic love, or he's a big Neil Young fan.
Quote #5
Sometimes Father would say, "Christopher, if you do not behave I swear I shall knock the living daylights out of you," or Mother would say, "Jesus, Christopher, I am seriously considering putting you into a home," or Mother would say, "You are going to drive me into an early grave." (73.4)
Okay, we admit – love is pretty complicated. If Christopher has heard these things from the two people in the world who love him most, it has to be difficult to get a handle on just what it means to love someone.
Quote #6
And Father said, "Christopher, do you understand that I love you?"
And I said, "Yes," because loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble, and looking after them, and telling them the truth [...]" (137.9-10)
Is this love? Yes, we know that's a Bob Marley song too, actually. But seriously, what is it? Is it these things? What else might it be? Doesn't it sound as if Christopher was once given a list of things that represent loving someone? Does that work, or is love something we have to just spontaneously know?
Quote #7
And Roger told me that he and Eileen weren't in love with one another anymore, and that they hadn't been in love with one another for a long time. Which meant that he was feeling lonely too. So we had a lot in common. And then we realised that we were in love with each other. (157.15)
Wow, is it just us, or this incredibly unconvincing? What exactly do they have in common: being lonely? That's it? Well, that's not a good sign. And it's that realization that makes them realize they're in love with each other? Does that sound right to you? Should we give them the benefit of the doubt here?
Quote #8
And then, after a while, she said, "Christopher, let me hold your hand. Just for once. Just for me. Will you? I won't hold it hard," and she held out her hand.
And I said, "I don't like people holding my hand."
And she took her hand back and she said, "No. OK. That's OK." (227.123-25)
This is the first time Christopher's mother has heard from, let alone seen, her son in two years. She's obviously very emotional, and she asks him for just the smallest morsel of physical affection in return. She knows she can't hug him, but she thinks maybe they can just hold hands, just this once. Christopher, despite how affected he's clearly been by learning his mother is still alive, doesn't hear this same plea in his mother's voice. The intensity of the moment doesn't change the fact that he simply doesn't like being touched – not even his hand.
Quote #9
And then I heard Mother's voice and she was shouting, "Christopher…? Christopher…?" and she was running down the road, so I came out from between the skip and the Ford Transit can and she ran up to me and said, "Jesus Christ," and she stood in front of me and pointed her finger at my face and said, "If you ever do that again, I swear to God, Christopher, I love you, but... I don't know what I'll do." (233.33)
Does this strike anyone else as sort of a strange thing to say? How do you think this sentence would end, if she were to keep talking? Just what is she thinking here?
Quote #10
And then Father nodded and he didn't say anything for a short while. Then he said, "Thank you."
And I said, "What for?"
And he said, "Just... thank you. Then he said, "I'm very proud of you, Christopher. Very proud." (233.125-27)
Christopher's father's speechlessness here manages to express his love for his son more than any of his agonized pleas earlier on in the book. Like Christopher's beautiful image of his mother's ashes, the book's most profound words about love don't include the word "love" at all. It's funny how that works sometimes.