The One I Was Quotes

“The world depends on some of us refusing to be the same as everyone else.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“But you could laugh and not really be happy.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“The world depends on some of us refusing to be the same as everyone else.’ He watched her stride back towards the house.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“put tradesmen’s cards and cards from distant acquaintances,’ Smithy retorted. ‘Family and old friends”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“nursing”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“Certain he wouldn’t”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“into the house. I felt more relaxed now I wasn’t dwelling on myself and my past. I was thinking about how Benny must have felt when he’d first arrived in England.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“flagstones replacing the old parquet floor might have been there for centuries. What had I expected – that the house would somehow remember what had happened on”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“moggy”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“Harwich, his stomach had stopped heaving. He stood at the top of the gangplank, took in deep breaths of the salt-and-oil air that rasped his throat. Where were the little kids he’d looked after on the voyage? A woman in nurse’s uniform was already steering them away. Someone pushed him gently down the gangplank. It looked different, England: the cars, dockers, buildings. People were smiling at them, even the policemen in their tall helmets and capes. One of them was holding a small girl’s hand, picking up her suitcase, snow falling on them. All very foreign. All very safe. He had to get the hell out. He turned around. He’d hide on the boat. But there was no fighting the tide of children streaming down the gangplank. Boys cursed him and girls tutted as he shoved into them. He gave up and let them push him down to dry land. Not that it was very dry. It had obviously rained here. And now it was snowing, white flakes dissolving into the black ground. Everything swayed as Benny walked along the quay. Perhaps it took a while to get used to being on land again. The English dockers were shouting in that up-and-down, up-and-down language he couldn’t understand. HARWICH, he read on a sign. Then they were on a bus, the air thick with the reek of long journeys and farewells”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“salt-and-oil air that rasped his throat. Where were the little kids he’d looked after on the voyage? A woman in nurse’s uniform was already steering them away.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“doorbell. Sarah, the housekeeper, opened the front door and let me in. I heard myself exchanging pleasantries with”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was

“His mother had been like that: kinder than most of the other mothers, a believer in enjoying life.”
― Eliza Graham, The One I Was