They can tak' oour lives but they canna tak' oour troousers!

You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.

A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.

One day all of us will die but - and this is the important thing - we are not dead yet.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.

But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.