“Trench dirt didn't always wash out, I am sure.”

“It is worthless talking about what we have been spared by death. Death grins at that I am sure. Death of all creation knows the value of life.”

“My own story, anyone's own story, is always told against me, even what I myself am writing here, because I have no heroic history to offer. There is no difficulty not of my own making.”

“I am old enough to know that time passing is just a trick, a convenience. Everything is always there, still unfolding, still happening. The past, the present, and the future, in the noggin eternally, like brushes, combs and ribbons in a handbag.”

“When they came into their trench he felt small enough. The biggest thing there was the roaring of Death and the smallest thing was a man. Bombs not so far off distressed the earth of Belgium, disgorged great heaps of it, and did everything except kill him immediately, as he half expected them to do.”

“But as I spoke to him, all I could feel was love. That was ridiculous. And I am deeply, deeply suspicious of it.”

“To be alone, but to be pierced through with a kingly joy, now and then, as I believe I am, is a great possession indeed.”