Quotes from Robert Hicks

I wanted to leave the whole war behind me, and yet I was seeing something on that battlefield that demanded commemoration. It was unholy ground, but I wanted to thank God for showing it to me. I would never again look at a man without wondering what crimes he was capable of committing. That seemed important to know.

The pieces of soul can't be cut out without filling them up again, that's a real law there. God's law. Can't cut out the pieces any more than you can go around with a big hole in your gut. Got to be plugged up, replaced somehow.

Made me wonder whether putting names to time made much of a difference anyway. What did it measure? Not how much life passes. Hell no. Your whole life can pass and be changed in a second or in a century. Don't matter.

I ain't much for advice. Never been any good with words the way some men are. But I know, sometimes the tears just don't come. When the time comes to start healin', you oughta let yourself.

The only glory to be had was the glory of surviving.

Until I get the keys to the Kingdom, Lord, I ain't giving up.

It would drive a man mad to apprehend the whole tragedy, to know every effect and consequence, to know the names of every good man and woman, every genius and every saint, who was never born because their lineage petered out there on that rise at Franklin.

You only had to be in one fight to know what a beautiful thing a trench could be. The first minié ball whizzes by your head, and you're a digging man evermore.

You can get so that every step, every little obstacle on the battlefield, becomes so big that you can't see much past it, and when you do get past, it's sometimes hard to remember what the hell you were supposed to be doing.

his head for him. "I'll give you the one because we