Extraits

The first I heard about our literary society was the next morning at seven, when Elizabeth appeared in my kitchen and asked, 'How many books have you got?'

I had quite a few, but Elizabeth looked at my shelves and shook her head. 'We need more. There's too much gardening here.' She was right, of course - I do like a good garden book. 'I'll tell you what we'll do,' she said. 'After I've finished at the Commandant's Office, we'll go to Fox's Bookshop and buy them out. If we're going to be the Guernsey Literary Society, we have to look literary.'

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers - booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up work in a bookshop for the wages, and no one in their right mind would want to own one - the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it - along with first goes at the new books.

Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don't consider myself a real peeper - they go in for bedrooms, but it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their whole lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or burning candles, or bright cushions.

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you on to another book, and another bit there will lead you on to a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.

I don't want to be married just for the sake of being married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.

Remy a observé le flux et le reflux de la mer. "Il aurait mieux valu pour elle qu'elle ait un cœur moins grand", a-t-elle conclu

Pour elle oui, mais pas pour nous

L'homme se doit de ne jamais penser du bien de sa propre personne - ça s'appelle le péché d'orgueil. Eh bien, montrez-moi un homme qui se déteste, et je vous montrerai un homme qui déteste encore plus ses voisins !

C'est inévitable : comment accorder à autrui ce que l'on se refuse à soi-même (...) !

Miss Tilley s'est montrée si incroyablement grossière envers Kendrick qu'il a tenté de l'assommer avec son téléphone. Je ne peux pas le blâmer, seulement les téléphones ne sont pas faciles à trouver, nous ne pouvons pas nous permettre d'en perdre un.

Si, j'ai un téléphone. Il se trouve dans Oakley Street sous les décombres, de ce qui fut jadis mon appartement. A présent, je suis sous-locataire, et ma propriétaire, Mrs. Olive Burns, possède le seul téléphone des lieux. Si le coeur vous dit de discuter avec elle, je peux vous donner son numéro.