“When you watch the living force go out of a man’s face as you fire your weapon into his unprotected body, it is very personal,”

“I lost my own daughter and I’ll never have another. The hurt doesn’t go away, no matter what you tell yourself. It’s there day and night. I’d have killed any man who touched her. Why should I stand for such talk about another man’s child, if I wouldn’t have stood for it about my own?”

“Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?"Surprised, Davies said, "He's a war hero isn't he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He's visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn’t go around killing people!"With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?”

“Courage is not measured byMarching bands and banners in the wind.If you have not walkedThe bloody lines and seen the faces,You have no right to describe it so.We die here to keep you safe at home,And what we sufferPray you may never know.”

“We walked away from all that was warm and dear and stood frightened in cold rain where the guns fired, and in the end, we died in pain, the black stinking mud our shroud, embraced at last not by living arms, but by the bones of those who before us died …”

“There’s a beauty in birds on the wing,That stirs the heart and makes earthbound creaturesLong for flight, but the larks above the battlefieldAre silenced by the sounds of war.I have watched birds out at sea,Catching the wind,And longed to follow them,To some safe place far from here.”

“No one ever stepped forward to protect me, Inspector. I wonder why I should feel any driving sense of duty to protect anyone else. Let me tell you something about love. It can be very cruel and very greedy. I’ve had done with it. And that has given me a freedom that I cherish.”