John Hersey

“There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

“...their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks.”

“It's a failure of national vision when you regard children as weapons, and talents as materials you can mine, assay, and fabricate for profit and defense.”

“Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money follow; our life is short, we don't live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile.”

“The price one pays for having a kind man at one’s elbow.”

“…she looked like Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, only she was fat and her lake was dust, sand and dust, bones and dust and sand.”

“Dr. Wyman preached a God I couldn’t quite see in my mind, and certainly couldn’t love. I dimly pictured some kind of Grandfather, who dealt out to bad people their awful “just deserts,” which I thought must be poisoned food at the end of delicious meals.”

“The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?”

“Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.”