But I was used to finding something deadly in things that attracted me; there was always something deadly lurking in anything I wanted, anything I loved.

This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age. In this double demotion the old giants have become pygmies while you were looking the other way.

Sarcasm is the protest of the weak.

It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart

It is a sad day when one looks back and sees that his largest regrets have become some of the most integral elements of his dreams.

Your war memories will be with you forever, you'll be asked about them thousands of times after the war is over. People will get their respect for you from that-partly from that, don't get me wrong-but if you can say that you were up front where there was some real shooting going on, then that will mean a whole lot to you in years to come.

the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse