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Diana Cavendish: I want Jonathan t know you, there must be something I can do.
Robin Cavendish: Get me out of here.
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Paddy: Five pounds says you'll never make it.
Robin Cavendish: And what do I get if I do?
Paddy: You get five pounds, you thick.
Robin Cavendish: You're on.
-
[Robin Cavendish is taken from the hospital ward to go home and live with his wife]
Paddy: So long.
Robin Cavendish: So long Paddy. I'll be back for my fiver.
-
[Diana and Dr Khan are wheeling Robin out of the hospital towards a waiting ambulance vehicle]
Dr. Entwistle: Where do you think you are going?
Diana Cavendish: We're taking my husband home.
Dr. Entwistle: You don't have my permission.
Robin Cavendish: Is this a prison? Am I your prisoner?
Dr. Entwistle: What do you think you are doing?
Dr. Khan: It is the patient's own wish, sir. He is fully apprised of the risk.
Dr. Entwistle: Take him back to the ward at once.
Robin Cavendish: Diana, call the police. Tell them I'm being held against my will.
-
Dr. Entwistle: No one with your husband's degree of disability anywhere in the world exists outside a hospital.
-
Diana Cavendish: Dr Khan. Robin and I, we wanted to ask you a question. Didn't we, Robin? Can machines like that ventilator only work in hospitals?
Dr. Khan: Well, it's just a machine, you know. You plug it in and it goes. Why do you ask?
Diana Cavendish: Robin's going to leave the hospital.
Dr. Khan: Do you have any idea of the risk?
Diana Cavendish: Yes, yes I do. The risk is that he might die.
Diana Cavendish: [turns toward Robin]
Diana Cavendish: Robin...
Robin Cavendish: I either go on living here or leave here and possibly die.
Diana Cavendish: Yes.
Robin Cavendish: Well, what are we waiting for?
-
Bloggs Blacker: [about Teddy Hall] He doesn't have a job. He's an Oxford professor.
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Robin Cavendish: [about his motorised wheelchair] Goes five miles an hour. With a strong wind behind you.
-
[Diana is wheeling Robin out of the hospital in his chair]
First Woman: It isn't kind to let them out like that.
Second Woman: On the street, where everyone can see?
Robin Cavendish: Believe me, ladies, my distress is far greater than yours.
-
Diana Cavendish: Bloggs told me the other day that all our friends were convinced I'd give up on you. Apparently they saw me as some kind of a pampered nitwit
Robin Cavendish: Well, you are a pampered nitwit.
Diana Cavendish: Oh, was I? Well, it didn't stop you running after me, did it?
Robin Cavendish: Well, no. I've got nothing against nitwits, as long as they're pretty.
-
Robin Cavendish: Just think, all those affairs I could have had.
Diana Cavendish: And me.
Robin Cavendish: It's not too late for you.
Diana Cavendish: Oh, isn't it? What, and come back and find you've popped off while I was out?
Robin Cavendish: That would rather spoil the party, wouldn't it?
-
Robin Cavendish: This chair pushing business. Is is hard to do over long distances?
Diana Cavendish: Well, it's harder than a pram, I can tell you.
-
[arriving in Spain after flying out from Britain following the Cavendishes' emergency call and finding them partying obythe roadside despite the broken ventilator]
Teddy Hall: You could at least have the decency to be on the point of death.
-
Dr. Clement Aitken: Is that chair breathing? Like a sleeping lion. Glorious.
-
Teddy Hall: I like this man. Is he a doctor?
Robin Cavendish: Yes, and he's the Director of the Disability Research Foundation.
Diana Cavendish: Which he invented.
Robin Cavendish: Yes, and made himself director.
Dr. Clement Aitken: If nobody else will do it, you have to do it yourself.
-
German Receptionist: [seeing Robin being wheeled into the hotel in his wheelchair] I think he should be in hospital. No?
Bloggs Blacker: You're quite right. No.
-
Dr. Clement Aitken: May I begin by noting an interesting fact? At this conference on managing the lives of the severely disabled there are no disabled people present.
[general laughter]
Conference Chairman: Dr Aitken, forgive me, but the severely disabled are on life-support machines. So how could they be present?
[loud laughter in the room]
Dr. Clement Aitken: Um... well, allow me to introduce... um... Mr Robin Cavendish.
-
Robin Cavendish: Why do you keep your disabled people in prisons?
-
Robin Cavendish: Let me ask you, when you look at me, what is it that you see? Do you see a creature that's barely alive? Or do you see a man that's escaped the confines of the hospital wards? Now, I have a machine under this very seat, and it breathes for me. And at home, I have a ventilator by my bed. I also have a remarkable group of friends. And most vitally I have my wife. But, as you see, I can do nothing for myself. And yet here I am. When I first became paralysed, I wanted to die. Yeah, I wanted to die, I did. But my wife wouldn't let me. She told me I had to live. To see our son grow up. So I went on living... because she told me to. Because of her, really. And with her. And for her. And every day since then, I've accepted the risk of dying because I don't want to just survive. I want to truly live. So, I implore you, you go back to your hospitals and you tell your disabled patients that they too can truly live. You all have this power to open the gates and set them free.
-
Colin Campbell: There is something I have to say. I want you to know what a difference you've made to my life. It's not always been easy for me. Every time I come here... I go away stronger. And it's not because you're worse off than me.
Robin Cavendish: No, no, no.
Colin Campbell: It's who you are, Robin. Or who you've turned yourself into, God knows how.
Robin Cavendish: Thank you, Col.
Colin Campbell: I'm gonna miss you.
-
Diana Cavendish: Now, I don't have a farewell speech. You don't mind, do you?
Robin Cavendish: No.
Diana Cavendish: You have given me a wonderful life.
Robin Cavendish: It wasn't quite what you expected.
Diana Cavendish: [chuckles] No.
Robin Cavendish: No, nor me.
-
[Last Lines]
Diana Cavendish: Thank you for choosing to live.
Breathe Quotes
Extended Reading
