“I have nothing to say to men and never had. Judging from the little time I’ve spent with them, their usual conversation is sickening. Besides, they bore me. I believe,” he hesitated, then concluded, “I believe I don’t understand men.”

“I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.”

“We struck up a conversation, taking pains at first to give it an easy flow and sticking to the most frivolous topics. Did he, I asked, believe in predestination? He did. Did he believe that all men were doomed to die? Yes, he felt certain that all men would absolutely have to die, but he was less sure that all men had to be born...”

“and for the first time in my life I understand the end of that poem. And I never wanted to. You have to believe me.”

“... what he could or couldn’t say to them. Everything he had to say: I love you, it’s hell, I walk on corpses and breathe death, it’s only a matter of time before I prove a coward, and I don’t want to be a coward, but I don’t understand, either I kill people, or I’m a coward, that’s the choice, someone somewhere set it up and I get no vote, I can’t say, ‘I don’t accept that’ – and I have accepted it, for a year I’ve accepted it, this is the situation but I don’t understand how I got here, how it is just going on and on, and nobody mentions it, and if you don’t like it they think you’re mad, and you get shot, for cowardice, desertion . . . and your own men, your companions, your brothers, have to shoot you . . . and I’m so fucking scared out there every day, every night— and now they’ve made me a fucking officer — What the fuck could he say to any of them? Well, there’ll be none of that swearing for a start.”

“I'm tired of being crushed by the weight of men that believe in nothing, I have to change that.”