Quotes About Conflict

Lanser said, There are no peaceful people, when will you learn it? There are no friendly people, can't you understand that?

And the hatred was deep in the eyes of the people, beneath the surface.

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa's gonna be mad when he sees me do that. He don't like no fancy stuff like that. He don't even like word writin'. Kinda scare 'im, I guess. Ever' time Pa seen writin', somebody took somepin away from 'im.

They say a good soldier fights a battle, never a war. That's for civilians.

Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop.

It's hard to split a man down the middle and always to reach for the same half.

You keep out of my bed," said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.

The ancients placed love and war in the hands of closely related gods.

Sometimes it seems that the leaders of nations are little boys with chips on their shoulders, daring each other to knock them off.

Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.

You what. Curley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain't you? Always scrappy?

I don't know. It's like getting up in the morning. I don't want to get up but I don't want to stay in bed either.

A man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves.

It [the Mexican War] was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.

There were people who gave everything they had to the war because it was the last war and by winning it we would remove war like a thorn from the flesh of the world and there wouldn't be any more such horrible nonsense.

A WAR COMES ALWAYS to someone else.

And when a man's feelings are hurt he wants to strike at something, and Abel was in the way of his anger.

On'y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.' She moved the jack handle gently again. 'An' I'll shame you, Pa. I won't take no whuppin', cryin' an' a-beggin'. I'll light into you. An' you ain't so sure you can whup me anyways. An' if ya do get me, I swear to God I'll wait till you got your back turned, or you're settin' down, an' I'll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus' sake I will.

War did not make a killer of me, although for a time I killed men.

Why don't you beat him?

About Cal she couldn't decide. He disturbed her sometimes with anger, sometimes with pain, and sometimes with curiosity. He seemed to be in a perpetual contest with her. She didn't know whether he liked her or not, and so she didn't like him. She was relieved when, calling at the Trask house, Cal was not there, to look secretly at her, judge, appraise, consider, and look away when she caught him at it.

Young Adam was always an obedient child. Something in him shrank from violence, from contention, from the silent shrieking tensions that can rip at a house. He contributed to the quiet he wished for by offering no violence, no contention, and to do this he had to retire into secretness, since there is some violence in everyone. He covered his life with a veil of vagueness, while behind his quiet eyes a rich full life went on. This did not protect him from assault but it allowed him an immunity.

The sheriffs swore in new deputies and ordered new rifles; and the comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.