Jane Hawking

“I felt it was terribly important, for Stephen and the children, to keep the family together.”

“I had to be steadfast in my Christian beliefs, seeking strength from them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“No matter how bad I was feeling, I always thought, 'Stephen must be feeling worse.'”

“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.”

“When I was little, I used to spend a lot of time making up stories when I was put to bed.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Stephen's the great survivor, isn't he? He just goes on and on.”

“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.”

“We met in our hometown of St. Albans when I had just left school and Stephen was starting his Ph.D. studies in Cambridge.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I couldn't go off and leave Stephen. Coals of fire would have been heaped on my head if I had.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”