“Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.”

“All of us have two educations; one which we receive from others; another and more valuable; which we give ourselves.”

“No matter what we have come through, or how many perils we have safely passed, or how imperfect and jagged our life has been, we cannot in our heart of hearts imagine how it could have been different. As we look back on it, it slips in behind us in orderly disarray, and, with all its mistakes, acquires a sort of eternal fitness, and even, at times, a poetic glamour.”

“It is a good thing that women are so easily manipulated. Otherwise, most of us wouldn't be here.”

“Redder than a turkey's rump in poke berry time.”

“The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make “democracy” synonymous with a republican form of government?”

“I wonder what I’m going to be when I grow up,’ Rob asked himself.‘Well, not a film star,’ Mike said. ‘And not an all-in wrestler. Why don’t you be a drunk? You don’t need any talents for that.’‘It’s got to be something in your blood,’ Rob said. It was his view that all history was a matter of blood.‘That’s a lot of bullshit,’ Mike said. ‘Hell, Australia was built by people who didn’t know who their grandparents were. You can be anything you want to be, and you ought to be what you want to be, not what your grandpa was.’‘Well, what are you going to be?’ Rob demanded… ‘A drunk,’ said Mike. ‘I haven’t got any talents.”