“Could I write an autobiographical novel, I wonder? Can one make a book out of the very essence of one's self? Perhaps so, if one was left with one's gift stripped bare of all that made it worth having, and nothing else was left...”

“At college, more than anywhere else, one was likely to make the friendships that supported one through life.”

“There seemed to be nothing left in the world, for I felt that Roland had taken with him all my future and Edward all my past.”

“Like no one else... you share that part of my mind that associates itself mostly with ideal things and places... The impression thinking about you gives me is very closely linked with that given me by a lonely hillside or a sunny afternoon... or books that have meant more to me than I can explain... This is grand, but still it isn't enough for this world... The earthly and obvious part of me longs to see and touch you and realise you as tangible.”

“If this word should turn out to be a 'Te moriturum saluto,' perhaps it will brighten the dark moments a little to think how you have meant to someone more than anything ever has or ever will. What you have striven for will not end in nothing, all that you have done and been will not be wasted, for it will be a part of me as long as I live, and I shall remember, always.”

“Mother says that people like me just become intellectual old maids,' I told him.'I don't see why,' he protested.'Oh, well, it's probably true!' I said, rather sharply, for misery had as usual made me irritable. 'After the War there'll be no one for me to marry.''Not even me?' he asked very softly.'How do I know I shall want to marry you when that time comes?''You know you wouldn't be happy unless you married an odd sort of person.''That rather narrows the field of choice, doesn't it?''Well--do you need it to be so very wide?”

“I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy War, and the orators who talk so much about going on no matter how long the War lasts and what it may mean, could see a case--to say nothing of 10 cases--of mustard gas in its early stages--could see the poor things burnt and blistered all over with great mustard-coloured suppurating blisters, with blind eyes--sometimes temporally, sometimes permanently--all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke.”