I had always been content to know that there was more in the living world than we could hope to understand.

The essence of wisdom is to know when to be doing, and when it's useless even to try

To remember love after long sleep; to turn again to poetry after a year in the market place, or to youth after resignation to drowsy and stiffening age; to remember what once you thought life could hold, after telling over with muddied and calculating fingers what it has offered; this is music, made after long silence. The soul flexes its wings, and, clumsy as any fledgling, tries the air again

There are few men more superstitious than soldiers. They are, after all, the men who live closest to death.

It is never wise to turn aside from knowing, however the knowing comes.

Folks will say anything, and next time round they'll believe it.

There are such people, unfortunates who have to be angry before they can feel alive. I had sometimes wondered if it were some old relic of pagan superstition, the fear of risking the jealousy and anger of the gods, that made such people afraid of even small happinesses. Or perhaps it was only that tragedy is more self-important than laughter.