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f85fcba War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living. distractions illusions life war Francesca Lia Block
f59ff26 "A true warrior," she said, "does not fight because he wishes to but because he has to. A man who yearns for war, a man who enjoys his killing, he is a brute and a monster. No matter how much glory he wins on the battlefield, that cannot erase the fact that he is no better than a rabid wolf who will turn on his friends and family as soon as his foes." war warrior Christopher Paolini
62f53ed Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most. war women David Mitchell
1a18cfe The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told. peace stoker war Bram Stoker
6fcd391 This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be. This quality was destroyed by too much responsibility for others or the necessity of undertaking something ill planned or badly conceived. For in such things the bad ending, failure, could not be ignored. It was not simply a possibility of harm to one's self, which be ignored. He knew he himself was nothing, and he knew death was nothing. He knew that truly, as truly as he knew anything. In the last few days he had learned that he himself, with another person, could be everything. But inside himself he knew that this was the exception. That we have had, he thought. In that I have been most fortunate. That was given to me, perhaps, because I never asked for it. That cannot be taken away nor lost. But that is over and done with now on this morning and what there is to do now is our work. ernest-hemingway for-whom-the-bell-tolls war Ernest Hemingway
6ba48b0 This country was filled with violent children orphaned by war. children war Cormac McCarthy
d28c7fd Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of sisters nowhere to go Millions of daughters walk in the mud Millions of children wash in the flood A million girls vomit and groan Millions of families hopeless alone refugees september-on-jessore-road war Allen Ginsberg
15f3740 It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family. applause dancing singing stage theater war Noel Streatfeild
ce2c3d2 "All their lovers' talk began with the phrase "After the war". After the war, when we're married, shall we live in Italy? There are nice places. My father thinks I wouldn't like it, but I would. As long as I'm with you. After the war, if we have a girl, can we call her Lemoni? After the war, if we've a son, we've got to call him Iannis. After the war, I'll speak to the children in Greek, and you can seak to them in Italian, and that way they'll grow bilingual. After the war, I'm going to write a concerto, and I'll dedicate it to you. After the war, I'm going to train to be a doctor, and I don't care if they don't let women in, I'm still going to do it. After the war I'll get a job in a convent, like Vivaldi, teaching music, and all the little girls will fall in love with me, and you'll be jealous. After the war, let's go to America, I've got relatives in Chicago. After the war we won't bring our children with any religion, they can make their own minds up when they're older. After the war, we'll get our own motorbike, and we'll go all over Europe, and you can give concerts in hotels, and that's how we'll live, and I'll start writing poems. After the war I'll get a mandola so that I can play viola music. After the war I'll love you, after the war, I'll love you, I'll love you forever, after the war." war Louis de Bernières
4bc0b24 He [Harry Bosch] defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company mystery vietnam war Michael Connelly
a836039 They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards. embarrassment shame war Tim O'Brien
67cd181 First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rusack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. love war Tim O'Brien
1b5e908 "The king was silent. "Ents!" he said at length. "Out of the shadows of legend I begin a little to understand the marvel of the trees, I think. I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of the strange places, and walk visible under the Sun." "You should be glad," Theoden King," said Gandalf. "For not only the little life of Men is now endangered, but the life also of those thing which you have deemed the matter of legend. You are not without allies, even if you know them not." "Yet also I should be sad," said Theoden. "For however the fortune of war shall go, may it not so end that much that was fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle-earth?" -- hope imagination inspiration war J.R.R. Tolkien
29fda96 Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hears? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely that one Leader could force a million Englishmen against their will. If, for instance, Mordred had been anxious to make the English wear petticoats, or stand on their heads, they would surely not have joined his party -- however clever or persuasive or deceitful or even terrible his inducements? A leader was surely forced to offer something which appealed to those he led? He might give the impetus to the falling building, but surely it had to be toppling on its own account before it fell? If this were true, then wars were not calamities into which amiable innocents were led by evil men.They were national movements, deeper, more subtle in origin. And, indeed, it did not feel to him as if he or Mordred had led their country to its misery. If it was so easy to lead one's country in various directions, as if she was a pig on a string, why had he failed to lead her into chivalry, into justice, and into peace? He had been trying. Then again -- this was the second circle -- it was like the Inferno -- if neither he nor Mordred had really set the misery in motion, who had been the cause? How did the fact of war begin in general? For any one war seemed so rooted in its antecedents. Mordred went back to Morgause, Morgause to Uther Pendragon, Uther to his ancestors. It seemed as if Cain had slain Abel, seizing his country, after which the men of Abel had sought to win their patrimony again for ever. Man had gone on, through age after age, avenging wrong with wrong, slaughter with slaughter. Nobody was the better for it, since both sides always suffered, yet everybody was inextricable. The present war might be attributed to Mordred or to himself. But also it was due to a million Thrashers, to Lancelot, Guenever, Gawaine, everybody. Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it. It was as if everything would lead to sorrow, so long as man refused to forget the past. The wrongs of Uther and of Cain were wrongs which could have been righted only by the blessing of forgetting them. peace war T.H. White
41980cb Attempts to locate oneself within history are as natural, and as absurd, as attempts to locate oneself within astronomy. On the day that I was born, 13 April 1949, nineteen senior Nazi officials were convicted at Nuremberg, including Hitler's former envoy to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, who was found guilty of planning aggression against Czechoslovakia and committing atrocities against the Jewish people. On the same day, the State of Israel celebrated its first Passover seder and the United Nations, still meeting in those days at Flushing Meadow in Queens, voted to consider the Jewish state's application for membership. In Damascus, eleven newspapers were closed by the regime of General Hosni Zayim. In America, the National Committee on Alcoholism announced an upcoming 'A-Day' under the non-uplifting slogan: 'You can drink--help the alcoholic who can't.' (' '?) The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favor of Britain in the Corfu Channel dispute with Albania. At the UN, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko denounced the newly formed NATO alliance as a tool for aggression against the USSR. The rising Chinese Communists, under a man then known to Western readership as Mao Tze-Tung, announced a limited willingness to bargain with the still-existing Chinese government in a city then known to the outside world as 'Peiping.' All this was unknown to me as I nuzzled my mother's breast for the first time, and would certainly have happened in just the same way if I had not been born at all, or even conceived. One of the newspaper astrologists for that day addressed those whose birthday it was: Sage counsel no doubt, which I wish I had imbibed with that same maternal lactation, but impartially offered also to the many people born on that day who were also destined to die on it. alcohol alcoholism andrei-gromyko antisemitism astrology astronomy beijing birth birthdays breastfeeding britain censorship china communism communist-party-of-china corfu corfu-channel-incident czechoslovakia damascus diplomacy ernst-von-weizsacker flushing-meadows flushing-queens gods history hitler horoscopes hosni-zayim international-court-of-justice israel jews mao mars nato nazis newspapers nuremberg passover-seder prohibition the-hague united-nations united-states ussr vatican war Christopher Hitchens
a5d2f39 "War crimes, you say? No matter how many policies you put on paper, in reality, there are no rights and wrongs in war. War itself is a crime. War cannot be justified. I believe, the only people, in this world, whose opinions matter, are the ones who go the extra mile to help other people expecting nothing in return. Soldiers who fight fiercely for their country, the doctors in Sri Lanka's public hospitals attending to hundreds of patients at a time for no extra pay , the nuns who voluntarily teach English and math to children of refugee camps in the north, the monks who collect food to feed entire villages during crises, they are the people worth listening to, their opinion matters. So find me one of them who will say: they wish the war didn't end in 2009, that they wish Sri Lanka was divided into two parts. Find me one of them who agrees with the international war crime allegations against Sri Lanka, and I will listen. ife inspiration paulo-coelho sri-lanka war war-crimes Thisuri Wanniarachchi
ab9720a Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight! jingo vetinari vimes war Terry Pratchett
4e385d7 War is like night, she said. It covers everything. night war Elie Wiesel
f9c300c A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. respect soldiers war Henry David Thoreau
b804f5e I took my orders, too. But if i couldn't keep you alive, I thought I could at least keep you together. In the middle of a big war, you go looking for a small idea to believe in. When you find one, you hold it the way a soldier holds his crucifix when he's praying in a foxhole. five-people-you-meet-in-heaven foxhole middle-of-a-big-war orders religion war Mitch Albom
67293ff So the whole war is beause we can't talk to each other. genius miscommunication war Orson Scott Card
c81d556 I turned the page in Slaughterhouse Five, a forbidden book at Belmont because we were too young to read about soldiers swearing and bombs dropping and bodies blowing up and war sucking. war Laurie Halse Anderson
15ab110 At the advent of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the human heart: one very reasonably invites a man to consider the nature of the peril and the means of escaping it; the other, with a still greater show of reason, argues that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general march of events, and it is better therefore to shut one's eyes to the disagreeable until it actually comes, and to think instead of what is pleasant. When a man is alone he generally listens to the first voice; in the company of his fellow-men, to the second. war Leo Tolstoy
bd5fb44 War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged. feeling gone-with-the-wind marriage scarlett-o-hara war Margaret Mitchell
092324a You're going to keep making these mistakes as long as you keep carrying your brain in the same scabbard with your sword, Lelldorin. war David Eddings
01f771a He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war. ernest-hemingway war Ernest Hemingway
a31c682 The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play. forced-migration migration nationalism refugees war Mohsin Hamid
b76f94b The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that have still not died down after many centuries, and that are actively continuing in some of the world's most troubled areas. epidemics genocide history interaction peoples war Jared Diamond
63d7b8d "It is difficult for the ordinary voter to come to grips with the notion that a truly politics war Hunter S. Thompson
3e082c1 Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. rwanda war Philip Gourevitch
2897ce0 One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. black field red war wood-pile Henry David Thoreau
011b134 Then the storm broke, and the dragons danced. fire-and-blood storm targaryens war George R.R. Martin
5cb790f Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren't enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round. war Ford Madox Ford
09816d9 (On WWI:) A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of retribution, but that was the way it was being done. ... A messenger came to the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it. ... It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now. The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all. But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. ... He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight. He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant. But of course it meant something to Kibii and me, because the tall young man was Kibii's father and my most special friend. Arab Maina died on the field of action in the service of the King. But some said it was because he had forsaken his spear. death senselessness war wwi Beryl Markham
2b48d44 Ronald Spiers: The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it. war Stephen E. Ambrose
9e272b2 "You do not mean there is danger of peace?", cried Jack." -- navy peace war Patrick O'Brian
ea40677 My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late -- our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten. exile otma romanovs russia russian-revolution traveling tsar-nicholas-ii war Sarah Miller
1afbd85 How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? condemnation decision man peace preference war Isaac Asimov
eb2619d Go back' Taran shouted at the top of his voice.'Have you lost your wits?' Eilonwy, for it was she, half-halted. She had tucked her plaited hair under a leather helmet. The Princess of Llyr smiled cheerfully at him. 'I understand you're upset,' she shouted back, 'but that's no cause to be rude.' She galloped on. For a time, Taran could not believe he had really seen her. war Lloyd Alexander
de49246 Death, it turns out, is the mother of all conflicts. death-and-dying war Mark Z. Danielewski
65b4182 In a war, the first casualty is human dignity. war Paulo Coelho
e27f7ac We celebrate peace. Yet we pay no attention to the ways of curing aggression in human beings. And when one sees in psychoanalysis hostility disappearing as people conquer their fears, one wonders if the cure is not there. war Anaïs Nin
92c3d43 Even the air of this country has a story to tell about warfare. It is possible here to lift a piece of bread from a plate and following it back to its origins, collect a dozen stories concerning war-how it affected the hand that pulled it out of the oven, the hand that kneaded the dough, how war impinged upon the field where wheat was grown. war Nadeem Aslam
6c3fc40 Shall I tell you why young men love war? . . . In peace, there are a hundred questions with a thousand answers! In war, there is only one question with one right answer. . . . Going to war makes you a man. It is emotionally exciting and morally restful. war Mary Doria Russell
f7c6151 He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were. army catcher caulfield db holden rye salinger war J.D. Salinger
6d8c5b9 Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces. You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew. I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it. civilization denunciation evil good jews nazis ordinariness pettiness resentment war wwii Iain Pears
757197b It is love and reason,' I said,'fleeing from all the madness of war. madness reason war H.G. Wells
66caacf And it's safe to assume that those in power would think longer and harder about launching a war if they envisioned their own sons and daughters in harm's way. war Barack Obama
08d6d72 Farming is backbreaking work, but at least it is honest labor. This killing isn't honest. It is thievery... the thievery of men's lives, and no right-minded person should aspire to it. thievery war Christopher Paolini
2349821 ...their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks. war John Hersey
a4311f2 That's the one thing you can always depend on; as we're fighting one war, we're always preparing for the next one. war Max Brooks
18d93d6 Brave' covers everything from complete insanity and bloody disregard of other people's lives - generals tend to go in for that sort - to drunkenness, foolhardiness, and outright idiocy - to the sort of thing that will make a man sweat and tremble and throw up . . . and go and do what he thinks he has to do anyway. claire-fraser generals war Diana Gabaldon
659f422 Men die in battle; women die in childbirth. gender-roles history men purpose religion war women Philippa Gregory
2210691 Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every macrocosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals. selfishness war Fulton J. Sheen
189c1d2 ... it would be better for our country and the world in general, if at least the few people who were capable of thought stood for reason and the love of peace instead of heading wildly with blind obsession for new war. pacifism peace reason war Hermann Hesse
ffd14f3 The ancestral voices were prophesying war because ancestral voices never shut up, and they hate to be wrong, and war is a sure thing, sooner or later. prophesy the-blind-assassin war Margaret Atwood
f299b29 "Think about what it would mean to fight," he said. "Say we barricade ourselves here in the hotel and refuse to leave. They come at us with their Weapon, whatever it is. Some of us are hurt, some die. We go out to meet them with whatever weapons we can find - sticks, maybe, or pieces of broken glass. We battle each other. Maybe they set fire to the hotel. Maybe we march into the village and steal food from them nad they come after us and beat us. We beat them back. In the end, maybe we damage them so badly that they're too weak to make us leave. What do we have? Friends and neighbors and families dead. A place half destroyed, and those left in it full of hatred for us. And we ourselves will have to live with the memory of the terrible things we have done." inspirational love war Jeanne DuPrau
5d6c4e4 If war is not holy man is nothing but antic clay. war Cormac McCarthy
392734d You read a hundred military manuals you won't find the word kill they trick you into killing. war Anne Carson
82cf365 Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war! people truth war Jonathan Safran Foer
ee73e95 It was part of war; men died, more would die, that was past, and what mattered now was the business in hand; those who lived would get on with it. Whatever sorrow was felt, there was no point in talking or brooding about it, much less in making, for form's sake, a parade of it. Better and healthier to forget it, and look to tomorrow. The celebrated British stiff upper lip, the resolve to conceal emotion which is not only embarrassing and useless, but harmful, is just plain commons sense second-world-war stiff-upper-lip war George MacDonald Fraser
f41c848 It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I'm not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't.' She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining. rain symbolism war Ernest Hemingway
b852d0a When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: If one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end. ender enemy genius live war Orson Scott Card
b0248aa Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naive statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran. al-qaeda assassination barack-obama death-of-osama-bin-laden international-law islamism justice kofi-annan law osama-bin-laden pakistan quran right-to-self-defense self-defense september-11-attacks united-nations united-nations-security-council united-states united-states-navy-seals war Christopher Hitchens
d338969 Of course I do know it is the French who are so wicked; but there are all these people who keep coming and going - the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Russians. Pray, are the Russians good now? It would be very shocking - treason no doubt - to put the wrong people in my prayers. shifting-enemies war Patrick O'Brian
441dec1 It is harsh enough for each man to bear his own wound. But he who leads bears the wounds of all who follow him. leadership llassar war Lloyd Alexander
d4e105e ...Prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is... and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams... Prophecy will bite your prick off everytime, a-game-of-thrones a-song-of-ice-and-fire epic-fantasy fantasy george-rr-martin grimdark historical-fiction middle-ages political-fiction politics war George R.R. Martin
2843de7 In those days we did not trust anyone who had not been in the war, but we did not completely trust anyone. lost-generation trust war Ernest Hemingway
23eca69 Though there had yet to be a victor in this great war that had begun almost three years ago, Maurice had written to her that they had, all of them, on all sides, lost their freedom. Freedom to think hopefully of the future. true-to-life war Jacqueline Winspear
fc1f386 We are punctual, a stressed, marked characteristic. We need order around us, in the house, in the life, although we live by irresistible impulses, as if the order in the closets, in our papers, in our books, in our photographs, in our souvenirs, in our clothes could preserve us from chaos in our feelings, loves, in our work. Indifference to food, sobriety; but this, we admit, is the part of the war against a threatening fragility. impulse personality-traits war Anaïs Nin
f050dce I have learned that it is one thing to kill in battle, to send a brave man's soul to the corpse hall of the gods, but quite another to take a helpless man's life... death revenge war Bernard Cornwell
ba97a54 Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself. Well, the rabble could. The rabble would. He would lead the rabble in managing. The thing would be won. america civil-war democracy lincoln united-states united-states-of-america us usa victory war George Saunders
fc359d3 There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, and freedom, who did not shed blood in the process. Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is the violence they want and neither truth nor freedom. war Louis L'Amour
3223aa0 "No, we love war. War. Starvation. Plague. They fast-track us to enlightenment. "It's the mark of a very, very young soul," Mr. Whittier used to say, "to try and fix the world. To try and save anyone from their ration of misery." We have always loved war. We are born knowing that war is why we're here. And we love disease. Cancer. We love earthquakes. In this amusement-park fun house we call the planet earth, Mr. Whittier says we adore forest fires. Oil spills. Serial killers." plague starvation war Chuck Palahniuk
e4f9a9c The first casualty of a civil war was justice, Philip had realized. war Ken Follett
2bbbaaf Marvelous, isn't it, how these Germans can shoot back at us even when they're fucking dead. humor war ww1 Ken Follett
ab42477 ...this protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat. revolution strategy war Mao Zedong
1abe037 "You'd forgive me for Claire - but not for killing your . . . men." He glanced at the two Craddocks, spotty as a pair of raisin puddings and - Grey's look implied - likely no brighter." jamie-fraser lord-john war Diana Gabaldon
8e509b3 I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then.. despair honesty love war Diana Gabaldon
099cb08 "There is an old saying that there is no country as unhappy as one that need heroes." (King Pelles the Sure)" war Peter S. Beagle
7079a75 I saw that this cataclysm must be an expiation for some barbarous crime of civilization, some terrible human lie. What the lie was, I had too little knowledge of history or science to know then. I know now it was our believing that we were fulfilling some end, serving some plan - that all would come out well in the end, because there was some great plan over all. Instead of the reality. There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves. war John Fowles
2528974 In the realm of power, Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty--necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels. This particular true faith, moreover, is more deeply concerned about the soul than it is about the body, to which fact the flesh (and the corpses) of countless infidels bears witness. hypocrisy war James Baldwin
bb1d6bf The hard truths are the ones to hold tight. - Old Bear a-song-of-ice-and-fire epic-fantasy fiction george-rr-martin grimdark middle-ages politics war George R.R. Martin
e3593f2 Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts. treaty war J.R.R. Tolkien
f1a1073 It was a good thing, we told ourselves; the eyes grow weary with looking at new things; sleeping late, we said, has its genuine therapeutic value; we would be better for it, would be able to work more effectively. We have little doubt that all this was true, but we wish we could build as good a rationalization every time we are lazy. For in some beastly way this fine laziness has got itself a bad name. It is easy to see how it might have come into disrepute, if the result of laziness were hunger. But it rarely is. Hunger makes laziness impossible. It has even become sinful to be lazy. We wonder why. One could argue, particularly if one had a gift for laziness, that it is relaxation pregnant of activity, a sense of rest from which directed effort may arise, whereas most busy-ness is merely a kind of nervous tic. ... How can such a process have become a shame and a sin? Only in laziness can one achieve a state of contemplation which is a balancing of values, a weighing of oneself against the world and the world against itself. A busy man cannot find time for such balancing. We do not think a lazy man can commit murders, nor great thefts, nor lead a mob. He would be more likely to think about it and laugh. And a nation of lazy contemplative men would be incapable of fighting a war unless their very laziness were attacked. Wars are the activities of busy-ness. contemplation laziness war John Steinbeck
6d2122f "Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there was something in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!" he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland? And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St. George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing!" war Leo Tolstoy
3ff6356 And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to happen tolstoy war Leo Tolstoy
f04eb89 That's my town,' Joaquin said. 'What a fine town, but how the buena gente, the good people of that town, have suffered in this war.' Then, his face grave, 'There they shot my father. My mother. My brother-in-law and now my sister.' 'What barbarians,' Robert Jordan said. How many times had he heard this? How many times had he watched people say it with difficulty? How many times had he seen their eyes fill and their throats harden with the difficulty of saying my father, or my brother, or my mother, or my sister? He could not remember how many times he heard them mention their dead in this way. Nearly always they spoke as this boy did now; suddenly and apropos of the mention of the town and always you said, 'What barbarians. family violence war Ernest Hemingway
e2280ee I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. war Ernest Hemingway
b89dc43 I hope I am not for the killing, Anselmo was thinking. I think that after the war there will have to be some great penance done for the killing. If we no longer have religion after the war then I think there must be some form of civic penance organized that all may be cleansed from the killing or else we will never have a true and human basis for living. The killing is necessary, I know, but still the doing of it is very bad for a man and I think that, after all this is over and we have won the war, there must be a penance of some kind for the cleansing of us all. for-whom-the-bell-tolls penance war Ernest Hemingway
ea0bbc5 The crime which is done now is that war has made a tool and slave of science, and man's knowledge, painfully and laboriously compiled, is made the instrument of man's destruction. war Leonard Wibberley
87ea524 A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. This, I reasoned, was why America felt justified in bringing so many deaths to Afghanistan and Iraq, and why America felt justified in risking so many more deaths by tacitly using India to pressure Pakistan. politics terrorism war Mohsin Hamid
f06de17 science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity's powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction. science war David Mitchell
f1c79ed ... the atmosphere of war brutalizes everyone involved, begets a fanaticism in which the original moral factor is buried at the bottom of a heap of atrocities committed by all sides. war Howard Zinn
0641e6d The true agony of war isn't being wounded yourself, it's having to watch those you care about being hurt. christopher-paolini war Christopher Paolini
4c26b29 "It isn't about being fair and equal. It's about the difference between right and wrong." He stared out at the bloody Elinarch. "And this was wrong." mortality right-and-wrong war Jim Butcher
e70ddce I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows... Or it would be fine to confirm the odd beliefs about war: it's horrible, but it's a crucible of men and events and, in the end, it makes more of a man out of you. But, still, none of these notions seems right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme? Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories. vietnam war Tim O'Brien
35b4b2f There's a light shining in him, moving him forward: the light of freedom. That's what draws all of us to follow, to take risks, to keep on fighting when we see our comrades fall beside us. But there's no light without shadow. hope inspirational war warrior Juliet Marillier
a0fc027 The fiendlike skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth. violence war white-people Herman Melville
fb7a278 We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked and looked around to see if we had done something else with the food. sad sierra-leone war Ishmael Beah
8297651 It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens. otma romanovs russia russian-revolution tsar-nicholas war Sarah Miller
6007783 "There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never." "So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?" "Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God." nuclear-weapons russia spy war John le Carré
a3b8c10 I put a hand up to cup his cheek, warm and lightly stubbled. I didn't fool myself that this was paradise or even a refuge from the war - wars tended not to stay in one place but moved around, much in the manner of cyclones and even more destructive where they touched down. But for however long it lasted, this was home, and now was peace. temporary-refuge war Diana Gabaldon
99fbebe I don't like this war. I don't like the cold-blooded scheming at the beginning and the carnage at the end and the grumbling and the jealousies and the pettishness in the middle. I hate the lack of gallantry and grace; the self-seeking; the destruction of valuable people and things. I believe in danger and endeavor as a form of tempering but I reject it if this is the only shape it can take. danger endeavor gallantry grace war Dorothy Dunnett
48ea5e6 It seems to me, that you people spend a great deal of time talking about honour, but strip away the high sounding words and you are no different from any other race. Family? Has Priam not killed wayward sons? When a king dies do his sons not go to war with one another to succeed him? Men speak of how you reacted to your father's death. They say it was amazing, for you did not order your little brother's execution. Your race thrives on blood and death, Helikaon. Your ships raid the coasts of other nations, stealing slaves, burning and plundering. Warriors brag of how many men they have killed, and women they have raped. Almost all of your kings either seized their thrones with swords and murder, or are children of men who seized power with swords and murder. So put all this talk of honour to one side. honour murder war David Gemmell
99b85cc How many hopes and dreams are trapped within these bones? How many wonders lie never to be discovered? This is what war is. Desolation, despair and loss. There are no victors. war David Gemmell
2cc94b2 "No self-righteous speeches?" "This is war," he said simply. "We're past that sort of thing." self-righteous speech war Sarah J. Maas
575e832 Yet only the atrocities of the conquered are referred to as criminal acts; those of the conqueror are justified as necessary, heroic, and even worse, as the fulfillment of God's will. indians war west Jim Fergus
3bd8225 On the night of New Year's Day, I thought of a wonderful New Year's resolution for the men who run the world: get to know the people who only live in it. power war Martha Gellhorn
42d5780 You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn't of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that's not your business.They should've trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies. military war John Steinbeck
aefd29f "Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come back to in the intervals between a greater love - the only real love - the lust for riches buried in the earth, that are your own if you can find them. Perhaps you do not call it home, even to yourself. Perhaps you call them 'my house,' 'my woman,' What if there was another 'my house,' 'my woman,' before this one? It makes no difference. This woman is enough for now. Perhaps the guns sounded too loud at Anzio or at Omaha Beach, at Guadalcanal or at Okinawa. Perhaps when they stilled again some kind of strength had been blasted from you that other men still have. And then again perhaps it was some kind of weakness that other men still have. What is strength, what is weakness, what is loyalty, what is perfidy? The guns taught only one thing, but they taught it well: of what consequence is life? Of what consequence is a man? And, therefore, of what consequence if he tramples love in one place and goes to find it in the next? The little moment that he has, let him be at peace, far from the guns and all that remind him of them. So the man who once was Bill Taylor has come back to his house, in the dusk, in the mountains, in Anahuac. ("The Moon Of Montezuma")" cynical cynicism home loyalty noir perfidy ptsd soldier strength war weakness world-war-ii ww-ii Cornell Woolrich
24026fc Wars do not combust without warning. They begin as little fires over the horizon. Wars approach. A wise man watches for the smoke, and prepares to vacate the neighborhood just like Ayrs and Jocasta. My worry is that the next war will be so big, nowhere with a decent restaurant will be left untouched. restaurant war warning David Mitchell
4c4a904 Why are we fighting? We're fighting because we're soldiers. That's simple enough, isn't it? For what cause are we fighting? Simple again. We're fighting to protect our country, and, in a wider sense, the whole of the English-Speaking Union. From whom? No concern of ours. Where? Wherever we're sent. Now, Foxe, I trust all this is perfectly clear. war Anthony Burgess
be254ff [...] I stated to them among other things that no country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America. government pakistan politics terrorism united-states war Mohsin Hamid
8594760 Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers. peace war Leo Tolstoy
a9a493f You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you're glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why. war Glen Cook
c2ff5cc "On the planet O there has not been a war for five thousand years, she read, and on Gethen there has never been a war." She stopped reading, to rest her eyes and because she was trying to train herself to read slowly. "There has never been a war." In her mind the words stood clear and bright, surrounded by and sinking into an infinite, dark, soft incredulity. What would that world be, a world without war? It would be the real world. Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality. But my people, she thought, know only how to deny. Born in the dark shadow of power misused, we set peace outside our world, a guiding and unattainable light. All we know to do is fight. Any peace one of us can make in our life is only a denial that the war is going on, a shadow of the shadow, a doubled unbelief. So as the cloud-shadows swept over the marshes and the page of the book open on her lap, she sighed and closed her eyes. thinking, "I am a liar." Then she opened her eyes and read more about the other worlds, the far realities." reality war Ursula K. Le Guin
e0807ed "In the German tongue, in the Polish town poland war Sylvia Plath
2b234bd (On the beginning of the mid-1990s' genocidal war in Rwanda:) Within six weeks, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi, representing about three-quarters of the Tutsi then remaining in Rwanda, or 11% of Rwanda's total population, had been killed. genocide rwanda tutsi war Jared Diamond
f486b09 One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the were jealous. The seder for Passover (which is a shame-faced simulacrum of a Hellenic question-and-answer session, even including the wine) tells the children that it's one of those things that happens to every Jewish generation. After the or or Holocaust, many rabbis tried to tell the survivors that the immolation had been a punishment for 'exile,' or for insufficient attention to the Covenant. This explanation was something of a flop with those whose parents or children had been the raw material for the 'proof,' so for a time the professional interpreters of god's will went decently quiet. This interval of ambivalence lasted until the war of 1967, when it was announced that the divine purpose could be discerned after all. How wrong, how foolish, to have announced its discovery prematurely! The exile and the Shoah could now both be understood, as part of a heavenly if somewhat roundabout scheme to recover the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other pieces of biblically mandated real estate. I regard it as a matter of self-respect to spit in public on rationalizations of this kind. (They are almost as repellent, in their combination of arrogance, masochism, and affected false modesty, as Edith Stein's 'offer' of her life to expiate the regrettable unbelief in Jesus of her former fellow Jews.) The sage Jews are those who have put religion behind them and become in so many societies the leaven of the secular and the atheist. arrogance atheism bible biblical-covenant children christianity divine-retribution edith-stein exile false-modesty gentiles grandmothers hellenism hiwi-al-balkhi holocaust jealousy jerusalem jesus judaism martyrdom masochism passover passover-seder punishment rabbis rationalisation religion secularism self-respect six-day-war suffering survivors theodicy war western-wall will-of-god wine Christopher Hitchens
965974b You must bear losses like a soldier, the voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong. inspirational julius-caesar loss resilience war Margaret George
0413520 "It stands to reason you've got to have a war. Not because anybody wants it, of course, but because there's an army. An army here and an army there and armies all over the shop. Armies is for wars and wars is for armies. That's only plain common sense.' war Anthony Burgess
649e851 The priest was good but dull. The officers were not good but dull. The King was good but dull. The wine was bad but not dull. war wine Ernest Hemingway
711606d Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. peace primitiveness society war Ursula K. Le Guin
7e1b7f0 The rocket was beautiful. In conception it had been shaped by an artist to break a chain that had bound the human race ever since we first gained consciousness of earth's gravity and all it's analogs in suffering, failure and pain. It was at once a prayer sent heavenward and the answer to that prayer: Bear me away from this awful place. humanity rocket space war wwi Michael Chabon
b98c38f The seeds of war are oft planted during times of peace. peace war George R.R. Martin
b916f46 No wars, in the war-logged record of our species, have been terminal. Until now, when we know that nuclear war would be the death of our planet. It is beyond belief that any governments-those brief political figures-arrogate to themselves the right to stop history, at their discretion. war Martha Gellhorn
a5288d6 Though the contradictions of war seem sudden and simultaneous, history stalks before it strikes. Something tolerated soon becomes something good. war Anne Michaels
e807224 But as I peeked at my brother's inert body....I was aware only of what a strange thing it was to be male. Society discriminated against women, no question. But what about the discrimination of being sent war? Which sex was really thought to be expendable. gender-based-discrimination war Jeffrey Eugenides
228d001 I was a soldier. It is like a dream. When even the bones is gone in the desert the dreams is talk to you, you don't wake up forever. war Cormac McCarthy
5807324 The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain. marines military pain war Philip Caputo
4bcf6dc The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County. Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years. So ended The Day. disaster nuclear-war war Pat Frank
69c310f the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and one will ever save you. strength war warrior Orson Scott Card
0a61cdc Scarlett, I don't know just when it was that the bleak realization came over me that my own private shadow show was over. Perhaps in the first five minutes at Bull Run when I saw the first man I killed drop to the ground. But I knew it was over and I could no longer be a spectator. No, I suddenly found myself on the curtain, an actor, posturing and making futile gestures. My little inner world was gone, invaded by people whose thoughts were not my thoughts, whose actions were as alien as a Hottentot's. They'd tramped through my world with slimy feet and there was no place left where I could take refuge when things became too bad to stand. When I was in prison, I thought: When the war is over, I can go back to the old life and the old dreams and watch the shadow show again. But, Scarlett, there's no going back. And this which is facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison--and, to me, worse than death.... So, you see, Scarlett, I'm being punished for being afraid. bull-run fear war Margaret Mitchell
9a49d31 Then he was sorry for the great fish... How many people will he feed?.. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course, not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. enemy live people war Ernest Hemingway
0736342 Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur's heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind from the sea to the kingdom of Gondor. fantasy king lotr middle-earth victory war J.R.R. Tolkien
c69d3b2 War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers war Robert A. Heinlein
c8d97f4 Afghanistan had collapsed and everyone's life now lies broken at different levels within the rubble. prose war Nadeem Aslam
e343b42 As a grandiose self-deception, war is o' the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion - usually both at the same time - as a means o' defeatin' death, but neither o' them do a blinkin' thing but sanction dyin'. Throughout history, Death's best friend has been a priest with a knife. religion war Tom Robbins
d4e6d0e Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity. christianity faith religion war Stephen Greenblatt
925cae6 Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again. american-revolution george-washington war David Hackett Fischer
fefa8cf Watching the towers fall in New York, with civilians incinerated on the planes and in the buildings, I felt something that I couldn't analyze at first and didn't fully grasp (partly because I was far from my family in Washington, who had a very grueling day) until the day itself was nearly over. I am only slightly embarrassed to tell you that this was a feeling of exhilaration. Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate. Fine. We will win and they will lose. A pity that we let them pick the time and place of the challenge, but we can and we will make up for that. new-york september-11-attacks terrorism war war-on-terror washington-dc Christopher Hitchens
e916337 I was taken to a villa to meet Sabri al-Banna, known as 'Abu Nidal' ('father of struggle'), who was at the time emerging as one of Yasser Arafat's main enemies. The meeting began inauspiciously when Abu Nidal asked me if I would like to be trained in one of his camps. No thanks, I explained. From this awkward beginning there was a further decline. I was then asked if I knew Said Hammami, the envoy of the PLO in London. I did in fact know him. He was a brave and decent man, who in a series of articles in the London had floated the first-ever trial balloon for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. 'Well tell him he is a traitor,' barked my host. 'And tell him we have only one way with those who betray us.' The rest of the interview passed as so many Middle Eastern interviews do: too many small cups of coffee served with too much fuss; too many unemployed heavies standing about with nothing to do and nobody to do it with; too much ugly furniture, too many too-bright electric lights; and much too much . The only political fact I could winnow, from Abu Nidal's vainglorious claims to control X number of 'fighters' in Y number of countries, was that he admired the People's Republic of China for not recognizing the State of Israel. I forget how I got out of his office. arafat china interviews iraq israel london middle-east military-training palestine plo politics said-hammami the-times two-state-solution war Christopher Hitchens
edbe47c The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much--one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up--but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side. 1976 2000 2001 axe-murder-incident china chinese-people kim-il-sung kim-jong-il korean-demilitarized-zone korean-peninsula korean-war land-mines madeleine-albright mao-zedong north-korea nuclear-weapons ottawa-treaty politics pyongyang seoul sichuan south-korea taedong-river totalitarianism united-states united-states-and-wmd united-states-army uss-pueblo-ager-2 war washington-dc Christopher Hitchens
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