“We stand a professional distance apart, as if I cant feel his pain screaming in my head. Mine amplifies his; they share a joint soundthat of glass breakinguntil they swell to a crescendo that deafens.”

“More than most, I know the pain of surviving.”

“What you said about the sweetest pain? That fits us.”

“So I make no effort to hide my pain. I dont ever put it all on display like thisbut for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will bemagni...”

“. . . and I dont expect him to suborn his life into mine any more than I would change my dreams for him. Were not one soul, one being, however much we love each other.”

“For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.”

“A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.”

“Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.”

“Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.”

“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”

“Soldiers manage by dividing themselves. They're one man in the killing, another at home, and the man that dandles his bairn on his knee has nothing to do wi' the man who crushed his enemy's throat ...”

“The world is vicious, too huge to care about even its own survival”