Tom Wilkinson credited as playing...
Alfie Stephenson
- Bella Brown: You know, I believed those things you said.
- Alfie Stephenson: Why would you say that?
- Bella Brown: Vernon told me how many times he's heard the exact same stories. Shame on you.
- Alfie Stephenson: You should doubt only a man who changes his story. I only repeat myself in the vague hope that one day somebody will actually hear me.
- Alfie Stephenson: Here. Helianthus. Giant sunflower. Start off with them, they are incredibly beautiful. They need a lot of light and heat. They follow the arc of the sun from dawn until dusk, extracting maximum energy from every day. It's a very... a very clever plant. Think about that.
- Alfie Stephenson: [about his garden] It's a world of beautifully ordered chaos. No, no, that's chaos, not calamity, Miss Brown. Because if you don't understand the difference, we won't go very far.
- [first lines]
- Alfie Stephenson: [narrating] Bella Brown. Well, what can I say? There was nothing normal about the girl. It's a miracle she survived at all after her arrival in the world.
- Alfie Stephenson: They say she would have perished if it hadn't of been for the ducks. Sat on her like an egg, they did. Treated her as one of their own. She was finally discovered by one of those ancient lunatics who frequent the parks of our city, and seem to enjoy hypothermia.
- Alfie Stephenson: She grew into the oddest of oddballs, terrified by the unpredictability of nature, and flora in particular. Where on earth that came from, I dread to think.
- Alfie Stephenson: She's always had a preoccupation with order, that would have tried the patience of a saint, never mind the nuns at Saint Fedelma's. It's an insular and solitary world for Miss Brown, just her and her books.
- Alfie Stephenson: Hers was a story just waiting to be told. But the obsessive little world she created meant that this was one book that remained firmly shut. I'm not a religious man but I believe someone sent her here to test us.