“...He was just scraps of words and dislocated phrases.”

“I doubt there is even a word in Afghani for peace. Nearest to it is probably a phrase that translates as “just getting my break back and reloading”

“Words and phrases grew only slowly”

“The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.”

“I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases.”

“Old soldiers never die - they're just thrown on the scrap heap!”