- Ethel Briggs: I could have married a deep-sea diver.
- Ernest Briggs: Well, why didn't ya?
- Ethel Briggs: Because I didn't love him.
- [first lines]
- Raymond Briggs: [voice over] There was nothing extraordinary about my Mum and Dad, nothing dramatic, no divorce or anything, but they were my parents and I wanted to remember them by doing a picture book. It's a bit odd really, having a book about my parents up there in the best seller list among all the football heroes and cookbooks. They'd be proud of that, I suppose, or rather probably embarrassed too. I'd imagine they'd say, "It wasn't like that," or, "How can you talk about that?" Well, I have, and this is their story.
- [last lines]
- Raymond Briggs: [with Jean, looking at the full grown pear tree in Ethel and Ernest's back yard] I grew it from a pip.