“A day came when I should have died, and after that nothing seemed very important. So I have stayed as I am, without regret, separated from the normal human condition.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. They read about Verdun or Stalingrad without comprehension, sitting in a comfortable armchair, with their feet beside the fire, preparing to go about their business the next day, as usual.
One should really read such accounts under compulsion, in discomfort, considering oneself fortunate not to be describing the events in a letter home, writing from a hole in the mud. One should read about war in the worst circumstances, when everything is going badly, remembering that the torments of peace are trivial, and not worth any white hairs. Nothing is really serious in the tranquility of peace; only an idiot could be really disturbed by a question of salary.
One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired, as I am writing about it now, at dawn, while my asthma attack wears off. And even now, in my sleepless exhaustion, how gentle and easy peace seems!”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Then there was the war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“War always reaches the depths of horror because of idiots who perpetuate terror from generation to generation under the pretext of vengeance.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“A day came when I should have died,
and after than nothing seemed very important,
so I stayed as I am, without regret
separated from the normal human condition.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Only the victors have stories to tell. We, the vanquished, were all cowards and weaklings by then, whose memories, fears, and enthusiasms should not be remembered.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Abandoned by a God in whom many of us believed, we lay prostrate and dazed in our demi-tomb. From time to time, one of us would look over the parapet to stare across the dusty plain into the east, from which death might bear down on us at any moment. We felt like lost souls, who had forgotten that men are made for something else, that time exists, and hope, and sentiments other than anguish; that friendship can be more than ephemeral, that love can sometimes occur, that the earth can be productive, and used for something other than burying the dead.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“What happened next? I retain nothing from those terrible minutes except indistinct memories which flash into my mind with sudden brutality, like apparitions, among bursts and scenes and visions that are scarcely imaginable. It is difficult even to even to try to remember moments during which nothing is considered, foreseen, or understood, when there is nothing under a steel helmet but an astonishingly empty head and a pair of eyes which translate nothing more than would the eyes of an animal facing mortal danger. There is nothing but the rhythm of explosions, more or less distant, more or less violent, and the cries of madmen, to be classified later, according to the outcome of the battle, as the cries of heroes or of murderers. And there are the cries of the wounded, of the agonizingly dying, shrieking as they stare at a part of their body reduced to pulp, the cries of men touched by the shock of battle before everybody else, who run in any and every direction, howling like banshees. There are the tragic, unbelievable visions, which carry from one moment of nausea to another: guts splattered across the rubble and sprayed from one dying man to another; tightly riveted machines ripped like the belly of a cow which has just been sliced open, flaming and groaning; trees broken into tiny fragments; gaping windows pouring out torrents of billowing dust, dispersing into oblivion all that remains of a comfortable parlor...”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“The problems I had existed before I did, and I discovered them.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“It is a mistake to use intense words without carefully weighing and measuring them, or they will have already been used when one needs them later.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“No time to spare: the expression assumed its full significance, as so many expressions do in wartime.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Only victors have stories to tell,
we the vanquished were then thought of
as cowards and weaklings whose memories
and fears should not be remembered.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Men who have embraced one idea can live only by and for that idea. Beyond it, they have nothing but their memories.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Peace has brought me many pleasures, but nothing as powerful as that passion for survival in wartime, that faith in love, and that sense of absolutes. It often strikes me with horror that peace is really extremely monotonous. During the terrible moments of war one longs for peace with a passion that is painful to bear. But in peacetime one should never, even for an instant, long for war!”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don’t have to carry that threat out too often.”
― David Eddings, quote from Polgara the Sorceress
“Well do I see how the Eternal Ray, which, once seen, kindles love forevermore, already shines on you. If on your way some other thing seduce your love, my brother, it can only be a trace, misunderstood, of this, which you see shining through the other.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Paradiso
“Coincidence, Jim, is just a word superstitious people use to describe complex events that in truth are the mathematically inevitable consequences of a primary cause. - Michael quoting Mr. Spock”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Prodigal Son
“You wake up one morning and there it is, sitting in an old plaid bathrobe in your kitchen, unpleasant and unshaved. You look at it, heart sinking. Madness is a rotten guest.”
― Marya Hornbacher, quote from Madness: A Bipolar Life
“J.D. scoffed at this. “Please—as if I’m worried about anything Payton has to say. What’s she going to do, give me another one of her little pissed-off hair flips?” He flung imaginary long hair off his shoulders, exaggerating. “I’ll tell you, one of these days I’m going to grab her by that hair and . . .” He gestured as if throttling someone.
Without breaking stride, he returned Tyler’s serve. The two smashed a few back and forth, concentrating on the game when—
Is violence always part of your sexual fantasies?” Tyler interjected.
J.D. whipped around—
Sexual—?”
—and got hit smack in the face with the squash ball. He toppled back and sprawled ungracefully across the court.
Tyler stepped over and twirled his racquet. “This is nice. We should talk like this more often.”
― Julie James, quote from Practice Makes Perfect
New York to Dallas
Wittgenstein's Mistr...
Dumplin'
The Hollow
Dark Fire
Match Me If You CanBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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