What is the good of influence if one can only use it on strangers?

Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, providing that one remembered to go for country walks, and to tune the wireless to music.

One could always imagine that one's life, though smoldering in parts, might be undamaged in the west.

But what good is it to teach a child to count, if you don't show him that he counts for something?

They spoke of small things at first, since it was best, when reattaching threads, to begin with the easiest knots.

People spoke in whispers, as if the war was listening

She knew, now, why her father had not spoken of the last war, nor Alistair of his. It was hardly fair on the living.

I suppose we ought to be getting home, in any case.”“Oh god, is it wartime already?”“Look on the bright side: it’ll be dinner when we get back.

The first problem of war was that no one was any good at it yet.

Then I’m tempted to die just to … spite him.”“That’s the spirit that will win us the war.

There in the sweet sacking smell of the mail bags he understood that he was dying, and it pleased him that he was going in the company of so many soft words home.

The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the decisions you make each day.

These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing.

No man can see himself unless he borrows the eyes of a friend

I've never played for a draw in my life.

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs

Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.

Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you.

I feel amazing right now. I just feel like dancing.

So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.