Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face.

The past is a palimpsest. Early memories are always obscured by accumulations of later knowledge.

I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.

Half the world's work is done by hopeless neurotics.

Only memories have a future.

Trust your heart’s feeling, accept it and be happy.

When things don't go the way you want them to, sometimes instead of feeling disappointment or heartache, you just become numb.

Besides the physical ordinance of baptism and the laying on of hands, one must be spiritually born again to gain exaltation and eternal life.

I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn.

... we do not admire what we cannot understand.

I didn't have anyone to play with so I made up my own world.

We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.

I am going to make sure that transformation happens, and I will do it in ways you cannot even imagine.

I'm so hard on myself. I play these sketches in my computer for friends and they say 'Gee whiz, the vocal's beautiful.' I hear, 'It needs to be better.'