G.B. Edwards > Quotes

“If you talk to people nowadays, nothing exists unless it has been seen on TV. It gives people the idea they have seen and know everything, when really they have seen and know nothing.”
― G. B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I don’t know what young fellows want to go in for those sort of things for?” I said. “Wars are a waste of time; and advertising is all lies.” “I am afraid, my dear Mister Le Page,” he said, looking very sorry for me, “you are an anachronism.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I reckon it is up to us to treat each other better than the Lord do, and teach Him a lesson.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“In the twinkling of an eye a veil is lifted; and you see with other eyes and hear with other ears and are given another understanding.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“Ci ho pensato spesso. Dicono che i bambini nascono dall'amore reciproco tra i genitori. Non mi risulta. Forse nascono perché l'amore tra i genitori non è perfetto. Forse vengono al mondo attraverso una crepa che c'è fra i due genitori. Non so.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“Having children is a lottery and you never know what you are going to draw out. Perhaps it is as well I got none.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“Is all one generation can do to set the stage for the comic, sad story of the next?”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I caught the bus to town and the tram to the Half-way and walked the rest. I was too down-hearted even to call in at Hutton's for a drink. It was dark when I got indoors and I lit the lamp. The house was empty, empty, empty! I was alone and I new I would be alone for the rest of my days. I don't know how I managed to live since then. I have had friends or, at least, people I have talked to: and many people have been good to me. I can't ever say how good Tabitha have been to me: but I took it for granted while she lived. I have chased after this girl, or that girl, when the spirit moved me: or, more likely, as Raymond would have said, from force of habit. I have lived in Raymond's tragic story as if it was my own: but it is a mystery to me yet, and perhaps i put things wrong when I tried to put things right. I have held my own against strangers and against enemies from another country: and against the double-faced behaviour of some of my own people. I have seen the funny side of things, and made a lot of people laugh: and I suppose they have thought I am the happy-go-lucky sort: but since that night I have lived without hope. I have often wondered what it is I can have done wrong to have to live for so many years without hope. It is no wonder I think a lot and am a bit funny in the head.”
― G.B. Edwards

“I had always thought the New Testament was sort of all right. He said it was worse. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.’ Those were the most blasphemous words any man ever uttered. He spoke of Russia. If in Russia you don’t think what Comrade Stalin says you are allowed to think, you are liquidated. That is bad enough; but at least the Communists don’t believe there is anything after. The Christians do and are totalitarian about the next world as well as this. For centuries they have been consigning countless millions to hell.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I remember too well how I thought at times when it comes down to rock bottom, I didn’t care tuppence about anything, or anybody, except myself; and that everybody else was the same. If this is true, it is something a man should not know. It may be it was the one lesson we learnt from the Occupation, but it was the wrong lesson.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I think his heart was broken because he doubted if God was love. 'Cupboard love isn't love,' he said. 'Is there any other?' I didn't want to have to answer that question. 'Is there, Ebenezer?" he said. Have you ever known it?" 'Yes,' I said.

He sat for a long time looking into the fire, saying nothing. At last he said, 'You are thinking of your friend, Jim Mahy?' I said, 'I wasn't thinking of Jim, as a matter of fact. I was thinking of Jean Batiste and my sister Tabitha.' He said, 'Yes, but Jim and Jean are dead. It is easy to believe in it because it wasn't broken. They didn't break it of themselves.' I said, 'Perhaps it never really is broken, if the truth was known.’ I don't know why I said that, because I am not at all sure I believe it. He said, ‘I hope to God you’re right!”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“When I hear the noises from the radios on the beach, or from that abomination of abominations, the T.V.,”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“Then it happened. I don't know what. The great rocks was not rocks, nor the sea sea, yet they was real as real; and the clouds was gates of glory, and every way I turned my eyes the view was waves of joy and golden light. 'God, that's magnificent!' said Neville. I had no words but Raymond's. 'It is a glimpse of the world as God made it’, I said, 'on the first evening of the first day’. He gave me a funny look. ‘I’d love to paint it!’ he said. 'It can never be painted,' I said.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“Beware of any people who say they are chosen of history, or by God,’ he said. ‘They choose themselves. There are no Chosen People.’ I said, ‘Well, my mother didn’t think that: she believed in the Elect.’ ‘So do the Communists,’ he said. ‘They call them the Proletariat. The Nazis call them the Aryans. It amounts to the same. The Totalitarian State.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“When you got nobody to love and nothing to live for, you can always make money.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

“I didn’t like the French, and I think most Guernsey people felt the same. I thought they was dirty.”
― G.B. Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page