“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.”

“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”

“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.”

“Boredom had not been among the dangers that the SOE had prepared him for. No pompous little officer had stood in front of his class and said, "Right, chaps, today we're going to learn how to deal with a particularly nasty little situation that secret agents tend to find themselves in: being bored abso-bloody-lutely rigid".”

“Sentimentality and nostalgia are closely related. Kissing cousins. I have no time for nostalgia, though. Nostalgics believe the past is nicer than the present. It isn't. Or wasn't. Nostalgics want to cuddle the past like a puppy. But the past has bloody teeth and bad breath. I look into its mouth like a sorrowing dentist.”

“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.”