SHAFFER, Mary Ann, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

Pg. 10 (Juliet)

I had two copies and a dire need of shelf-room, but I felt like a traitor selling it. You have soothed my conscience.

Pg. 15 (Juliet)

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers - booksellers are a special breed.

Pg. 16 (Juliet)

It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don't really know what they are after - they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then being bright enough not to trust the publisher's blurb, they will ask the book clerc the three questions: 1) What is it about? 2) Have you read it? 3) Was it any good? 

Pg. 16 (Juliet)

If they read it and despise it, they'll never come back. But if they like it, they're customers for life.

Pg. 16 (Juliet)

-a publisher should send not just one reader's copy to a bookshop, but several, so that all the staff can read it, too.

Pg. 24 (Juliet)

I thought I was in love (that's the pathetic part - my idea of being in love).

Pg. 24 (Juliet)

In preparation for sharing my home with a husband, I made room for him...I cleared out half my dresser drawers, half my closet, half my medicine chest, half my desk.

Pg. 24 (Juliet)

On the afternoon before our wedding, Rob was moving in... I tore home to find Rob sitting on a low stool in front of my book case, surrounded by cartons. He was sealing up the last one with gummed tape and string. There were eight boxes -eight boxes of my books bound up and ready for the basement! He looked up...nodded toward my bookshelves and said, "Don't they look wonderful?" Well, there are no words! I was too appalled to speak... All I could do was scream, "How dare you! What have you DONE?! Put my books back!"

Pg. 25 (Juliet)

Well, that's how matters started.

Pg. 25 (Juliet)

He huffed and puffed and snorted - and left. And I unpacked my books.

Pg. 26 (Juliet)

-there are no words to express how much I needed to see a friendly face just then. I honestly was on the verge of stealing away to the Shetlands to take up the life of a hermit. It was beautiful of you to come.

Pg. 28 (Dawsey)

After six months of turnips and a lump of gristle now and then, I was hard put to think about anything but a fine, full meal.

Pg. 28 (Dawsey)

Come quick, it said. And bring a butcher knife. I tried not to get my hopes high - but I set out for the manor house at a great clip. And it was true! She had a pig, a hidden pig, and she invited me to join in the feast with her and her friends!

Pg.30 (Dawsey)

There is so much we wanted to know during the war, but we were not allowed letters or papers from England - or anywhere.

Pg. 33 (Juliet)

The old adage - humor is the best way to make the unbearable bearable- may be true.

Pg. 39 (Juliet)

I would never make fun of anyone who loved to read.

Pg. 39 (Juliet)

I have asked the Reverend...to write to you. He had known me since I was a child and is fond of me. I have asked Lady Bella Taunton to provide a reference for me too. We were fire wardens during the Blitz and she wholeheartedly dislikes me. Between the two of them, you may get a fair picture of my character.

Pg. 42 (Lady Bella Taunton)

I cannot impugn her character- only her common sense. She hasn't any.

Pg. 43 (Lady Bella Taunton)

Her light, frivolous turn of mind gained her a large following among the less intellectually inclined readers - of whom, I fear, there are many.

Pg. 44 (Lady Bella Taunton)

I believe Juliet to have been adequate for that daytime task -causing no catastrophe among the teacups.

Pg. 46 (Reverend Simon Simpless)

I knew exactly where to go - to her parents' former farm. I found her opposite the farm's entrance, sitting on a little wooded knoll, impervious to the rain - just sitting there, soaked - looking at her old (now sold) home.

Pg. 48 (Juliet)

Dear Susan,

I deny everything.

Love, Juliet

Pg.53 (Isola Pribby)

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.

Pg. 60 (Juliet)

I don't particularly care for carnivals, but after the tunnel, it's delicious.

Pg. 70 (Juliet)

I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something - anything - else. But that is like wishing I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there is no subtracting it.

Pg. 70 (Juliet)

Elizabeth McKenna was brave that night! She truly has grace under pressure, a quality that fills me with hopeless admiration.

Pg. 71 (Clovis Fossey)

Ralph, he's a big bragger when he drinks, and he said to all in the tavern, "Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt - a grease spot on the grass." That's no way to talk about lady, and I knew right then he didn't want the Widow Hubert for her own self, the way I did. He wanted only her grazing land for his cows. So I thought - If it's rhymes the Widow Hubert wants, I will find me some. I went to see Mr. Fox in his book shop and ask for some love poetry.

Pg. 75 (Eben Ramsey)

I will tell you now about our roast pig. The Germans were fussy over farm animals. Pigs and cows or kept strict count of.

Pg. 76 (Eben Ramsey)

They would make surprise visits to your farm, and your number of living pigs had better tally up with their number of living pigs. One pig less and you were fined, one time more and you could be arrested.

Pg. 85 (Juliet)

He needs a rest, and breaking his leg is probably the only way he'll allow himself to take one.

Pg. 87 (Juliet)

I don't know as much about children as I would like to. I am godmother to a wonderful three-year-old boy named Dominic, and the son of my friend Sophie. They live in Scotland, near Oban, and I don't get to see him often. I am always astonished, when I do, at his increasing personhood  - no sooner had I gotten used to carrying about a warm lump of baby and he stopped being one and started scurrying around on his own.

Pg. 87 (Juliet)

No sooner had I gotten used to carrying around a warm lump of baby than he stopped being one. I missed six months, and lo and behold, he learned how to talk! Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing since I do, too.

Pg. 89 (John Booker)

Seneca. Do you know who he was? He was a Roman philosopher who wrote letters to imaginary friends telling them how to behave for the rest of their lives. Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren't - they're witty.

Pg. 90 (John Booker)

We were to load the boat with his silver, his paintings, his bibelots, and, if enough room, Lady Tobias, and set sail at once for England.

Pg. 92 (John Booker)

I came to love our book meetings -  they helped to make the Occupation bearable.

Pg. 95 (Dawsey)

But some of the girls who dated soldiers gave the cigarettes to their fathers and bread to their families. They would come home from parties with rolls, pates, meat patties, and jellies stuffed in their purses, and their families would have a full meal the next day.

Pg. 95 (Dawsey)

I don't think some Islanders ever credited the boredom of those years as a reason to befriend the enemy.  Boredom is a powerful reason, and the prospect of fun is a powerful draw - especially when you are young.

Pg. 97 (Dawsey)

The way that Christian and I met may have been unusual, but our friendship was not.

Pg. 104 (Amelia)

I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on.

Pg. 113 (Dawsey)

I don't know what ails Adelaide Addison. Isola says she is a blight because she likes being a blight - it gives her a sense of destiny.

Pg. 118 (Juliet)

I am glad you want to know more about me and am only sorry I didn't think of it myself, and sooner.

Pg. 119 (Juliet)

I was a fairly nice child until my parents died when I was 12.

Pg. 121 (Juliet)

I suppose I do have a suitor, but I'm not really used to him yet. He's terribly charming and he plies me with delicious meals, but I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me. How awful, backward, cowardly, and mentally warped that will be if it turns out to be true.

Pg. 123 (Eben)

Jane had no more strength than a cat then, but she knew her mind.

Pg. 126 (Isola)

Yes she did - slapped her right across the face.  It was lovely.

Pg. 127 (Isola)

You have had such sadness with your Ma and Pa and your home by the river, for which things I'm sorry.  But me, I am glad you have dear friends.

Pg. 140 (Isola)

"I'm not going to sit inside waiting for them. I'm going to town to seek out my enemy."

 "And what are you going to do after you've found him?" I asks, sort of snappish.

"I'm going to look at him," she says. "We're not animals in a cage - they are. They're stuck on this island with us, same as we're stuck with the. Come on, let's go stare."

Pg. 142 (An Animal Lover)

I too am a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society - but I never wrote to you about my books, because I only read two -

Pg. 153 (Mark)

You asked me to give you time, and I have.  You asked me not to mention marriage, and I haven't. But now you tell me that you're off to bloody Guernsey for - what? A week? A month? Forever? Do you think I'm going to sit back and let you go?

Pg. 164 (Juliet)

Guernsey is beautiful and my new friends have welcome to me so generously, so warmly, that I haven't doubted I've done the right to come here -

Pg. 175 (Juliet)

I knew that all children were gruesome, but I don't know whether I'm supposed to encourage them in it.

Pg. 181 (Remy Giraud)

I am perhaps saying too much, things you do not wish to hear. But I must do this to tell you how Elizabeth lived - and how she held on hard to her kindness and her courage. I would like her daughter to know this also.

Pg. 185 (Juliet)

I'm sorry that our conversation ended badly last night. It's very difficult to convey shades of meaning while roaring into the telephone.