For Esmé with Love and Squalor Youth Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)

Quote #4

The young boy, who was about five, wasn't ready to sit down yet. He slid out of and discarded his reefer; then, with the deadpan expression of a born heller, he methodically went about annoying his governess by pushing in and pulling out his chair several times, watching her face. (10)

The narrator betrays a certain admiration for the little boy's gutsy behavior here – there's a kind of nostalgia for the good old days of childhood, when any behavior was permissible.

Quote #5

"You go to that secret Intelligence school on the hill, don't you?" she inquired coolly.

As security minded as the next one, I replied that I was visiting Devonshire for my health.

"Really," she said, "I wasn't quite born yesterday, you know." (23-25)

This typical pre-teen statement reminds us of something we should never forget as adults: kids are not as gullible as we think (or hope) they are.

Quote #6

"[Charles] misses our father very much. He was s-l-a-i-n in North Africa." (51)

Even though Esmé herself is a child, she feels the need to protect her little brother ("s-l-a-i-n").