They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.

Strange how complicated we can make things just to avoid showing what we feel!

You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal—no one will see it. But when a button is missing—everyone sees that.

The things men did or felt they had to do.

No matter how improbable an assertion is, if it is made with enough assurance it has an affect.

On the steps is a machine-gun ready for action. The square is empty; only the streets that lead into it are jammed with people. It would be madness to go farther - the machine-gun is covering the square.

I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their forms move like stick storks, like great birds. They come close up to the wire fence and lean their faces against it. Their fingers hook round the mesh.