“I had scarcely met Stephen, and then one Saturday I met some old friends for coffee, and they were saying, ‘Gosh it’s terrible about Stephen, isn’t it?’ They told me that he had been in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London having horrible tests and then had been diagnosed with an atypical form of a rare disease – motor neurone disease.”
― Jane Hawking
“Gardening is one of my enduring, favourite, and most rewarding pastimes.”
― Jane Hawking
“I don’t think of my life as having two marriages; I think of it as a continuum.”
― Jane Hawking
“When Stephen was first diagnosed, we weren’t actually going out together, but I was already falling in love with him. He had beautiful eyes and this amazing sense of humour, so we were always laughing.”
― Jane Hawking
“We would look up at the night sky together, and although Stephen wasn’t actually very good at detecting constellations, he would tell me about the expanding universe and the possibility of it contracting again and describe a star collapsing in on itself to form a black hole in a way that was quite easy to understand.”
― Jane Hawking
“I was born in Norwich, which I still regard as the most beautiful city in the world, despite the attempts by the Luftwaffe to destroy it in the Second World War.”
― Jane Hawking
“Just because you can no longer have a physical relationship with someone doesn’t mean you don’t love them.”
― Jane Hawking
“My philosophy is that while there’s life, there’s hope. It’s as simple as that.”
― Jane Hawking
“The truth was, there were four partners in our marriage. Stephen and me, motor neurone disease, and physics. If you took out motor neurone disease, you are still left with physics.”
― Jane Hawking
“I felt very committed to Stephen, and I didn’t think he could manage without me. I wanted him to carry on doing his amazing work, and I wanted the children to have a stable family behind them – so we just carried on.”
― Jane Hawking
“Being Stephen’s carer was such a struggle, and it’s a lonely job looking after a disabled person. Thinking back, I honestly wonder how I got through it.”
― Jane Hawking
“The gas man came one day, and he said, ‘What does your husband do?’ so I told him, and he said, ‘What’s the use of that?’ He had a point, but on the other hand, I firmly believed in Stephen and his brilliance. I encouraged him to popularise his science just because the gas man had been so insulting.”
― Jane Hawking
“I suppose I was still optimistic and unrealistic, and I just hoped we could keep going as we were. But no. That was not good enough for Stephen, so off he went. Those were hard times. They really were. But then, I suppose, divorce is always hard.”
― Jane Hawking
“When I was playing with the children, I felt I ought to be working, and when I was working, I felt I ought to be playing with the children.”
― Jane Hawking
“When I was little, I used to spend a lot of time making up stories when I was put to bed.”
― Jane Hawking
“I felt it was terribly important, for Stephen and the children, to keep the family together.”
― Jane Hawking
“I understood Stephen’s point of view because if you had been given a death sentence at the age of 21, would you find it easy to believe in a loving God? Also, Stephen’s work was taking him into the depths of the universe, and it was, I thought, fairly understandable that there wasn’t much room for God in his equations.”
― Jane Hawking
“I was always extremely determined, but I was also quite timid.”
― Jane Hawking
“Living here in Cambridge, you had to have an identity. It was not enough to be a wife. So I did a Ph.D. in medieval Spanish poetry.”
― Jane Hawking
“Of course I don’t think any of the past will go away. The thing is, with me and Stephen, for many years, I put every spoon of food into his mouth, dressed him, and bathed him. You do not forget that experience.”
― Jane Hawking
“Stephen’s belief was that if you were free to do your absolute best work, you would be rewarded. My belief was that if you gave all of yourself to what you believed was right, then that would be enough.”
― Jane Hawking
“I couldn’t let him die; I was the agent of life for Stephen.”
― Jane Hawking
“Our marriage was a great success. Stephen achieved what he wanted to achieve, we kept going for a very long time, and we had three wonderful children together.”
― Jane Hawking
“Although a linguist, I was always interested in, and fascinated by, Stephen’s explanations of his work and proud of his discoveries and achievements.”
― Jane Hawking
“I did the first proofreading of ‘A Brief History of Time,’ and when it came to writing my memoir, I consulted many scientific friends so that, contrary to what many critics supposed and were churlish enough to voice, I did actually write the scientific sections myself.”
― Jane Hawking
“The tension between Stephen’s atheistic stance and my faith always existed, but neither of us tried to convert the other. I am not evangelical.”
― Jane Hawking
“I had to be steadfast in my Christian beliefs, seeking strength from them.”
― Jane Hawking
“Don’t ever believe what you see in films.”
― Jane Hawking
“In the early days of our marriage, Stephen could walk around Cambridge on my arm – a stick on one hand, leaning on me with the other. I carried a baby on one arm and Stephen on the other.”
― Jane Hawking
“I was very anxious that Stephen should have every opportunity to fulfil himself.”
― Jane Hawking
“No matter how bad I was feeling, I always thought, ‘Stephen must be feeling worse.’”
― Jane Hawking
“After the success of Stephen’s book, a whole new crowd of people became very interested in him, and the family was just pushed into a corner.”
― Jane Hawking
“I couldn’t go off and leave Stephen. Coals of fire would have been heaped on my head if I had.”
― Jane Hawking
“To me, Stephen was my husband and the father of my children; one does not say to one’s husband, ‘Oh, you’re so clever! I must worship the ground under your feet, or in this case, wheels.’”
― Jane Hawking
“I felt that Stephen had become such a significant figure, a scientist of such international renown, that at some future date, someone would be sure to attempt an inaccurate, sensationalised biography, possibly including me, possibly writing me out of the script.”
― Jane Hawking
“The goddess Physics was Stephen’s idol. I was not jealous of her, but she did give me some cause for concern.”
― Jane Hawking
“The carer of the disabled person is always in the background. People don’t want to hear about the sleaze and the nitty-gritty and the hardship.”
― Jane Hawking
“We were surrounded by influences and interests that came between Stephen and me. The nurse who became his wife was seeking to undermine me, and there were wider influences, too, following the runaway success of ‘A Brief History of Time.’”
― Jane Hawking
“I never sacrificed myself. I did what I did out of love.”
― Jane Hawking
“I like to keep fit, and when not gardening or singing solo or in a choir, I cycle, play tennis, swim, dance, and practise yoga.”
― Jane Hawking
“Through singing, I met my second husband, Jonathan, who is a professional musician. He transformed our lives and relieved me of much of the strain that I had been carrying for so long.”
― Jane Hawking
“My generation of women was the last for whom marriage and a family were the goal.”
― Jane Hawking
“Stephen’s the great survivor, isn’t he? He just goes on and on.”
― Jane Hawking
“The family and Stephen were my reason for being. Without that, I felt I was nothing.”
― Jane Hawking
“We met in our hometown of St. Albans when I had just left school and Stephen was starting his Ph.D. studies in Cambridge.”
― Jane Hawking
“We were under scrutiny when Stephen became rich and famous. The media were in the house, and camera leads were absolutely everywhere – it was just nightmarish.”
― Jane Hawking
“That the Hawkings were eccentric, even odd, was well known. That they were aloof, convinced of their own intellectual superiority over the rest of the human race, was also widely recognized in St. Albans, where they were regarded with a suspicion and awe.”
― Jane Hawking
“Intellectually, Stephen was a towering giant. Bodily, he was as helpless as a newborn. The functions I fulfilled were all maternal rather than marital.”
― Jane Hawking
“In a sense, I am achieving what I set out to do – to devote myself to Stephen, to give him the chance of fulfilling his genius. But what have I become in the process? Who am I? What is there left of me? I am beginning to doubt my own identity.”
― Jane Hawking
“As Stephen’s fame began to take off in a big way, and because he was so immersed in physics, it was becoming more and more difficult to communicate with him.”
― Jane Hawking
“Stephen could be highly critical of people other than his closest relatives… He considered my friends to be easy victims and had no compunction in monopolizing the conversation at parties with his controversial opinions.”
― Jane Hawking
“I loved Stephen so much that nothing could deter me from wanting to marry him.”
― Jane Hawking
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