Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

His wet white face and miserable eyesBrought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fellHis troubled voice: he did the business well.(First verse of Died of Wounds)

For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.

The dead...are more real than the living because they are complete.

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.

I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.