“So? You think people stop talking to you when they are dead?”

“You do not win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making sure that some poor bastard dies for his.”

“Wagstaff was a trim little man in a dark-blue uniform with an armband embroidered with the words CIVIL DEFENSE."Thank you, Headmaster, and good morning, young gentlemen. Yesterday, as I'm sure you'll remember, I spoke to you about the ways you can help your parents prepare their homes against the possibility of nuclear attack."Clem grinned, noting Tash Harmsworth's scowl. Tash was a bugger for an incorrect proposition.”

“Yes, I still think of him as that, call him that. It's as real as any of his other names.”

“History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We're not especially interested in what it consists of. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause, so that we can get to the liquor store or the laundromat or the burger bar.”

“I lived through all these times, these great events, without caring very much, concerned with my own aging rather than the world's. Most of us do likewise. History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We're not especially interested in what it consists of. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause, so that we can get to the liquor store or the laundromat or the burger bar”

“What I'm trying to explain to my sulky little cousin is that we are doing things backwards. We are going from the end of the river to the start of the river. And endings are always sad. We are doing the sad bit first, which is wrong. Strange.”