Zoë Wanamaker: Susan Harper

Quotes 

• Susan Harper : These are my widow's weeds. Which is sexier?

  Ben : Sexier? Are you planning to score at your own husband's funeral?

  Susan Harper : Don't you want me to find a new father for your children?

  Ben : Yes... but why wait till I'm dead?

• Susan Harper : Maybe we should think now about who's going to care for Michael.

  Ben : No one much - ever!

  Susan Harper : I mean, he's still under 18. If - if - we both died, he'll need a guardian. Someone he'd like and respect.

  Ben : Stalin? Pol Pot?

• Susan Harper : Look, Ben, I just want your funeral to be perfect.

  Ben : Yes, yes, it will be perfect because I'll be dead! And rid of you lot! And according to the latest forecast, it won't be very long.

  Susan Harper : Oh. You went on to another website?

  Ben : Yes. And every site I look at, it gets worse. I'm now down to three weeks.

  Susan Harper : Three weeks? Oh, that's awful!

  Ben : Oh, Susan!

  Susan Harper : Oh. I was hoping you'd make it to April - a spring funeral would be so lovely!

  Ben : Stop it! Stop it! Stop it now!

  Susan Harper : I'm only trying to be organised.

  Ben : I don't want you to be organised! I want you to go to pieces! I want you to be completely and utterly distraught, like you were when Swimmy the goldfish died! I want you to weep and wail and gnash your teeth! I want you to pull out your hair and tear your clothes! And then I want you to go off your food and then sit in silence, staring at a wall and...

  Susan Harper : Slowly, slowly, slowly!

  Ben : What are you doing?

  Susan Harper : I'm noting all this down.

• Ben : You're probably wondering why I called you all here today.

  Janey Harper : No.

  Michael Harper : No.

  Susan Harper : Yes.

  Nick : What was the question?

  Ben : I've completed my will. But I've also found an online mortality site that talks sense. It's given me 40 more years to live! I can smoke, I can drink and eat as much junk food as I like! Hah! I've never felt so healthy and alive! See this?

  [Tears up his will] 

  Susan Harper : Your will!

  Abi Harper : My inheritance!

  Roger Bailey : My freedom! Hahahahahahahahaha!

• Susan Harper : We've got to be prepared, Ben. At any time, we could be snuffed out. Like a candle. Like Linda. Life is fragile.

  Susan Harper : No, life is annoying. Especially at this minute.

• Susan Harper : Take poor Linda. She didn't expect to die. There she was in Austria, happily skiing, then bam! She goes crashing into a tree and rebounds up the mountain into the path of an avalanche. Gets miraculously rescued, but then on the way to the hospital, the ambulance doors swing open and her stretcher rolls out in front of a snow plough!

  Ben : It could happen to anyone, darling.

• Ben : Susan?

  Susan Harper : Hmm?

  Ben : Do the kids ignore you?

  Susan Harper : They wouldn't dare!

  Ben : Well, they ignore me. More and more these days.

  Susan Harper : But you like being ignored.

  Ben : No, I like being left alone. It's a different thing.