“t was once famously said that it is as well that wars are so ruinously expensive, else we would never stop fighting them. However well said, it seems also to be endlessly forgotten that, while there may be just wars and unjust wars, there are never any cheap wars.”

“Sometimes, war being the unjust and drastic creature it is, those in whom he invested hopes took an arrow in the chest, the useless, by chance, thrived to irritate him another day.”

“Weapons are kept from women, but such a naming suggests that perhaps men fear our talents in war as well as our desire for peace.”

“This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.”

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”

“How can I know for sure if it's my son speaking and not you?""You never can, my lord. Just as no man can ever be sure that he alone is a thinking and feeling creature and everyone else a machine that only pretends to feel and think.”

“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.”