“Wanting to die and dying, she found were two separate things.”

“If the world is polluted, we are polluted. If the world dies, we die anyway. I don't pretend to be separate from the world. If she is poisoned, I jump in and be poisoned with her.”

“Her two worlds, two lives that she tried so hard to keep separate, were crashing together. And she felt helpless to stop it.”

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”

“If I could die saving two lives, I would, provided each of those two people were the kind of people who would die to save two more like them.”

“If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever? You're goddamn right they didn't.They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live.He ought to know. He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth.”