Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.

But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony - forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

Through the years our business has been killing;-it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of lif eis limited to death.

Good or ill, life is life; you only realize that when you have to risk it.

Everyone saves someone at least once. Just as he kills someone at least once. Even though he may not know it.

At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood-nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs.

For a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real, profound sense, is life; and perhaps happiness even - love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.