When you're scared, you're still hanging on to life. When you're ready to die, you let it go. A sort of emptying out occurs, a giving up on the world that seems oddly familiar even if you've never done it before.

The army consists of the first infantry division and eight million replacements.

Who wants a life of ease? And who wants a life in the office that you hate, and who wants to play golf?

One interesting thing I found was that if you take an affluent modern society and collapse it during a crisis, like a war or a natural disaster, people begin relating in a more ancient, organic way. They're functioning in small interdependent groups and putting others first. And another irony is that even in terrible times, cooperating makes people feel good.

There's no reason to do anything twice, and certainly no reason to do something that almost killed you.

An adventure is a situation where the outcome is not entirely within your control. It is up to fate, in other words

How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whisky? Do they cry?