“I am in a spot where I can neither be what I always am nor turn into what I could be.”

“My heart feels not so much in my chest as in my hands. I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside me.”

“I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores.”

“Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.”

“I am going to die, her brain recited calmly. I am going to be stabbed until I am died. How infuriating. I have so much left to do.”

“You're going to need a better reason this time. A real reason. And just to be clear, I don't give a fuck what it is because I am not going to let you go. Period.”

“For our purpose, however, what the soldiers did or did not read is irrelevant. For, if soldiers did not learn to fight their battles from reading books, neither is it likely that military historians learned to write their books from watching battles. Battles are extremely confusing; and confronted with the need to make sense of something he does not understand, even the cleverest, indeed preeminently the cleverest man, realizing his need for a language and metaphor he does not possess, will turn to look at what someone else has already made of a similar set of events as a guide for his own pen.”