“Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, providing that one remembered to go for country walks, and to tune the wireless to music.”

“One could always imagine that one's life, though smoldering in parts, might be undamaged in the west.”

“They spoke of small things at first, since it was best, when reattaching threads, to begin with the easiest knots.”

“She knew, now, why her father had not spoken of the last war, nor Alistair of his. It was hardly fair on the living.”

“I suppose we ought to be getting home, in any case.Oh god, is it wartime already?Look on the bright side: itll be dinner when we get back.”

“The first problem of war was that no one was any good at it yet.”

“As the tension between the Protestants and the Church of Rome intensified, so did the desire for a third way among dissenting groups. Soon a new group emerged, though in some senses it was also an ...”

“Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.”

“How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he h...”

“War is what happens when language fails.”

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”