Somebody said that carrier pilots were the best in the world, and they must be or there wouldn't be any of them left alive.

If you go long enough without a bath, even the fleas will let you alone.

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor only to break out again later.

But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.

All the rest of us - you and me and even the thousands of soldiers behind the lines in Africa - we want terribly yet only academically for the war to get over.

If I can just see the European war out I think I might feel justified in quitting the war.

War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.