In seven days God had created the Earth. In a single day mankind had turned it upside down.

Not every loss was confirmed by an officer at the door. Nor a telegram with the power to sink a fleet. Loss, often the worst kind, also arrived through the deafening quiet of an absence.

Maybe heaven entailed more than a soul residing in a single place, but instead having pieces of yourself spread among the hearts and memories of people you've touched.

Life is too short not to say how you feel to the people you love.

Were prayers of murderers, when fighting on the “right side” of the war, ever heard—let alone answered?

When I was a kid, my mom once told me that God was an artist and how on occasion He’d throw a bucketful of paint across the sky for us all to see. I asked her why the paint disappeared by morning, and she told me that if the sky was always like that we might take it for granted. I suppose she was right. Maybe that’s what war is all about—so we can appreciate times of peace.

The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.