“That's what any committed patriot would do: Fight to the last. Defeat your enemy at any cost; then hope you have enough left to rebuild.”

“So why don't they face us... examine our evidence, debate, talk... act like real historians instead of thought-police? Why shut us out of the media, pass laws against our speaking, persecute us, sue us, and vilify us?”

“I wonder what I’m going to be when I grow up,’ Rob asked himself.‘Well, not a film star,’ Mike said. ‘And not an all-in wrestler. Why don’t you be a drunk? You don’t need any talents for that.’‘It’s got to be something in your blood,’ Rob said. It was his view that all history was a matter of blood.‘That’s a lot of bullshit,’ Mike said. ‘Hell, Australia was built by people who didn’t know who their grandparents were. You can be anything you want to be, and you ought to be what you want to be, not what your grandpa was.’‘Well, what are you going to be?’ Rob demanded… ‘A drunk,’ said Mike. ‘I haven’t got any talents.”

“The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make “democracy” synonymous with a republican form of government?”

“A politician will do anything to keep his job -- even become a patriot.”

“Everything you know and can do, is for a reason and at some point your whole life will make sense.”

“At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.”