“At least 600,000 men died in the Civil War. Major battles numbered the dead in the thousands; even minor skirmishes killed hundreds...Then why study the death of thirteen men?... Mass death numbs the mind and heart as it numbers its vast toll. Relief from the horror is less possible when we watch old Joe Woods and thirteen-year-old David Shelton plead for life - and then die.”

“The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed--thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes--because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself--and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud.”

“It's my heart that is tired. A thirteen-year-old heart shouldn't feel like this.”

“Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, “casualties may rise to a million.” With individual stories, the statistics become people - but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless.”

“Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.”

“[Senator Bill] O'Chee: What do I have to do to be an Australian, because my family has been in this country for a hundred and ten years[78-year-old woman on incoming telephone call]: It doesn't matter.O'Chee: I've got to look English, have I?Old Lady: YesO'Chee: What about the Aboriginies?Old Lady: They're Australian, too.O'Chee: Can I just get this down for the record -- you can look Aboriginal and be an Australian, or you can look English and be an Australian, but you can't look Asian and be an Australian?Old Lady: That's right.”

“It happened in the autumn of the year, when murder feels at home, because so many other things are dying.”