“Rodwell wandered into No Man's Land and put a bullet through his ears. On Sunday, Robert sat on his bed in the old hotel at Bailleul and read what Rodwell had written. To my daughter, Laurine;Love your mother. Make your prayers against despair. I am alive in everything I touch. Touch these pages and you have me in your fingertips. We survive in one another. Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing dies. I am your father always.”

“Here was an unknown quantity-a child in breeches with a blue scarf wound around his neck whose job it was to get them out and back alive. This...was the greatest terror of war: what you didn't know of the men who told you what to do-where to go and when. What if they were mad-or stupid? What if their fear was greater than yours? Or what if they were brave and crazy-wanting and demanding bravery from you? He looked away. He thought of being born-and trusting your parents. Maybe that was the same. Your parents could be crazy too. Or stupid. Still-he'd rather his father was with him-telling him what to do. Then he smiled. He knew that his father would take one look at the crater and tell him not to go.”

“Me?" said Bragg. "I'm not alive. Revived, from time to time - maybe. but not alive."Liar."Try me."You forget, Mister Bragg - Stu honey - Stuart darling - Bragg baby. I already have."They had almost reached their destination.Col said: "I don't have burn marks for nothing, my dear. I don't have these scars by chance. I'm covered with your fingerprints. Covered from head to toe and back again on the other side."You sound just like Minna," said Bragg.I know," Col said. "I know I do. I've been practising.”

“Everyone who’s born has come from the sea. Your mother’s womb is just a sea in small. And birds come of seas on eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they’re born. The placenta is the sea. Your blood is the sea continued in your veins. We are the ocean — walking on the land.”

“Frederick?Had she really spoken? Certainly she'd tried, but her voice had failed to materialize and all she heard was the sound of her nightgown ripping as Frederick pulled it over her head and threw it aside. He was kneeling now between her ankles, pushing at her, forcing her knees apart and then her arms until she was entirely splayed on the bed beneath him. Nothing was said. Not a word. Ede felt his hand between her legs, forcing the way for the rest of him. Stop, she wanted to tell him. Stop. I don't understand what you're doing. But nothing - still nothing was said. He seemed to be raging inside her, moving his hips in a circular fashion, all the weight of his upper body help above her, resting on his arms, his hands pushing down into the mattress. Stop! But he didn't. Don't! But he did. Nothing. Not one word. The only sound he made was a choking noise in his throat at the end, as tough he might be going to strangle. But when he rolled away from her onto his back, she felt the shudder of his first free breath and she heard him sigh. It was over. Tonight. It was done. Ede could not bare the thought of seeing him, or of being seen. Still without speaking, she rose from the bed and through the dark, found her way to the bathroom. She had brought the torn nightgown wit her, but when she turned on the light and saw it, she threw it down in the corner. Ruined. Spoiled. Everything. When at last, she returned to the bed, Fredrick was sound asleep beneath the covers - and nothing - nothing - nothing was said.”

“As death approaches me, I regret this most, Pilgrim--aside from my loss of you. I regret that I blamed, so often, others--for faults and problems of my own making. And, if not of my own making, certainly of my own tolerance. That men could not love men--or women, women--that poverty was the fault and responsibility of the poverty-stricken (how can I have thought so!)--and that 'good' was something that could be decreed by governments, as if by creating laws we could establish the boundaries of someone else's needs and joys and confidence. How dare we decree what is 'good' for others when for us it has been a gift!'Sybil QuartermaineHôtel Baur au LacZürich14th May 1912”

“...no one belongs to anyone. We're all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy of strangers. You hear that? Strangers. I know what you want to do. I know you're going to go away to be a soldier. Well-you can go to hell. I'm not responsible. I'm just another stranger. Birth I can give you-but life I cannot. I can't keep anyone alive. Not anymore.”