“Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.”

“You know how it is as a rule, when you want to get Chappie A on Spot B at exactly the same moment when Chappie C is on Spot D. There's always a chance of a hitch. Take the case of a general, I mean to say, who's planning out a big movement. He tells one regiment to capture the hill with the windmill on it at the exact moment when another regiment is taking the bridgehead or something down in the valley; and everything gets all messed up. And then, when they're chatting the thing over in camp that night, the colonel of the first regiment says, "Oh, sorry! Did you say the hill with the windmill? I thought you said the one with the flock of sheep." And there you are!”

“Straight answers were beyond the powers of Rashid Khalifa, who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available.”

“Music never goes away. It is always available, but we are not always available to music.”

“It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.”

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”