Between his eyes, there were four lines, the marks of such misery as children should never feel. He spoke with that wonderful whisky voice that so many Spanish children have, and he was a tough and entire little boy.

All amateur travellers have experienced horror journeys, long or short, sooner or later, one way or another. As a student of disaster, I note that we react alike to our tribulations: frayed and bitter at the time, proud afterwards. Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.

We lisp in numbers, in the U.S. We are deluged by ample, often mysterious statistics. ... Like many in this country, I have come to regard statistics with doubt and merely as a hint of the probable shape of fact.

From the earliest wars of men to our last heart-breaking worldwide effort, all we could do was kill ourselves. Now we are able to kill the future.

In the end, in England, when you want to find out how people are feeling, you always go to the pubs.

If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat.

War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.