“Everyone who is not happy must be shot.”

“Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.”

“Tessa distinguished absolutely between pain observed and pain shared. Pain observed is journalistic pain. Its diplomatic pain. Its television pain, over as soon as you switch off your beastly set. ...”

“This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it's nothing, nothing...”

“I would say that since the war, our methods-out and those of the opposition-have become much the same. I mean you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's 'policy...”

“It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction were coincidental with attainment.”

“When shrouded meanings and grim intentions are nicely polished up and pokerfaced personae are generously palming off their fantasy constructs, caution is the watchword, since rimpling water on the ...”

“Beware of the thief who is after your cash; but be more cautious of the thief in the mind that's after your kind, your promise - your dream, your future.”

“Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries”

“Expect the best, prepare for the worst.”

“I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.”

“I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew...”

“I'll have no husband, if you be not he.”

“It was the ring on the left hand that people at the Old Girls' Reunion looked for. Often, in fact nearly always, it was an uninteresting ring, sometimes no more than the plain gold band or the very...”