if you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.

Synchronize watches at oh six hundred' says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.

...his job was the very least important part of his life, never to be mentioned except in irony.

Never say anything that doesn't improve on silence.

She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life?

if you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail… it takes back bone to lead the life you want

If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy.