“Maybe it's time to stop being a soldier and go home to be a father. And a husband for Deanna. I'm not sure how.”

“I will always hate war, but will be forever proud of mine.”

“Evan no longer tells people I fight bad guys for a living. When asked, he tells his friends that his dad talks on the phone a lot and vacuums on occasion.”

“I am a Christian, but my time in Iraq has convinced me that God doesn't want to hear from me anymore. I've done things that He can never forgive. I've done them consciously. I've made decisions I m...”

“Are you okay, man?""Yeah, I'm good."It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.”

“A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.”

“Above all, he loathed men who beat women; for, real men didnt exercise their strength on frail creatures, they joined the army and put Shazarias enemies in their graves.”

“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”

“Live your life. Be happy as you can be, let go of the things that don't matter, and fight.”

“He lowered his eyes to his dad's face. There was fear there. Fear. When your dad was frightened, there was something to be frightened about.”

“Mum is a perfectionist and Dad is a pedant and that was partly why their marriage didn't work so well, Elsa figures. Because a perfectionist and a pedant are two very different things.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”