“One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

“A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

“he could feel the earth beneath, all the deep stone of it, cool and hard near the surface of the earth, but hotter and softer as you went deep, until it flowed like honey, a vast sweet fiery ocean of molten rock a thousand times more voluminous and ten thousand times heavier than the sea. It felt to him as if it were his own blood, and his heart pumped it.”

“The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.”

“So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.”

“Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.”

“But I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind. Are we absolutely sure that we ought to win this war?”