Ema’s Reviews > The Book of Ebenezer Le Page > Status Update

All the people I have liked most in my life have been the very opposite to me: none of them was mean; but, if the truth was known, I have always been a mean little sod myself. I have always held something back, and seen to it I kept on the safe side. It is good to be shown up in your old age for what you are.

I don’t know why it is, but it is always the people I don’t like who get on well in this world. Those I do like come to a bad end.

When I go to Town nowadays and see all the visitors about, it is as much like a bad dream as when the Germans was here. I feel I got no right to live on the island now; except in the winter.

He said when you are young you are full of trust, but are taught all manner of things which are not true; and then, when you grow up, you have to undo it all, and think different: but you have lost your ability to trust anything taught.

He said to me, "A father and mother ought to mean more to each other than the children do. If they live only for the children, the children don't get a chance to live themselves." He had a wise head on his young shoulders.

She was so beautiful those days it hurt. The way she walked with her long legs and swung her shoulders and threw her head back when she laughed was a poem; but I wasn't going to be the slave of a poem.