Fear of an enemy can often blind men to other hazards, not least the shape which they themselves make in the world.

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting. I've thought a great deal about my life and my country. I think there is little that can be truly known. My family has been fortunate. Others were less so. As they are often quick to point out.

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire.

You go back home and everything you wished was different is still the same and everything you wished was the same is different.

When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way.

Lying under such a myriad of stars. The sea’s black horizon. He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again. When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.

But I didn't know what to say to him. What do you say to a man that by his own admission has no soul? Why would you say anything?