“The gorgeous breathlessness and thrilling pulse -- those are sensations that the years have layered on top of the initial emptiness, like sheet after sheet of silk covering a bare table. More than fifty years later I can only see the cloth; the table has been obscured.”

“All our luxuries won't keep some men from dying -- it can only be a matter of time until I see it happen -- but in our lazaret death will creep silently onto the operating table or nestle between clean sheets.”

“There is nothing more wonderful than feeling head-to-toe clean after you've been filthy, having a comfortable bed with clean sheets, being able to sleep in it in safety.”

“Only Gracie knew what it was like to wake up at night and feel how cold sheets can get on the empty side of a bed.”

“I have been much too calm these past three years. I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.”

“Children. There was no particular gurney for children and few things made Benke feel as uncomfortable as seeing the empty spaces left over on the trolley when he was transporting the body of a child; the little figure under the white cover, pushed up against the headboard. The lower half empty, the sheet smooth. That flat sheet was death itself.”