Quotes About War

I grew up listening in awe to stories of their wartime adventures. My granny, Joan, was a journalist and wrote amazing letters to my grandpa when he was a prisoner of war, while my nana, Mary, was a Land Girl, then a Wren. They were so independent, resilient and glamorous.

War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.

In 2013, I had to do 'The Wright Stuff' on about an hour's sleep. I was asked, 'What do you make of the situation in Mali?' and I said, 'Well, I've not seen the film but I know the dog dies in the end.' They were talking about the civil war, and the whole audience took an inward breath. I thought, 'Should I not have revealed the end of the film?'

For me, true beauty has nothing to do with wrinkles and everything to do with the fact that my maternal grandmother raised five children just after the war and remained a fighter throughout her life. True beauty is the slick of red lipstick my paternal grandmother would put on before going to church on Sunday.

As long as 'Pearl Harbor' stays in the past, it's perfect; when it wretchedly changes gears in the late going, it becomes the wrong kind of same old story: Hollywood stupidity and callowness, writ large across the sky.

It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.

I was born into Sudan's civil war, and before I could read or write, I was using an AK47 in the conflict between the Muslim north and Animist/Christian south over the land and natural resources.

If you're going to write about war, which my books are about, wars are nasty things. I think it's sort of a cheap, easy way out to write a war story in which no one ultimately dies.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice, heroism, war, politics and family struggle.

When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues, and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

Every record from New Found Glory is a little different. We're a real band that writes songs about our everyday relationships - like, our personal war, not war and government or politics.

The toys can help in the battle. Mother Ginger? I doubt it! Never underestimate the value of a mother in wartime. She has the most to fight for.

No one survives in times of war unless they make war their home. How did I get so old and wise, but for welcoming war into my house and making friends with him? Better to befriend the enemy and hang on. Something worse might come along, which might be amusing or might not.

The louder the cannon, the deafer the peacemakers.

When you're riding, it should look like a bird flying," Ray says, smiling. "Not a gut-shot bird … it should be smooth as silk. And I'll tell you what it takes to accomplish this: self-discipline. We humans only know how to put pressure on. We're good at making war, but it's a hell of a trial for us to make peace. Peace means respond and respect, not fear and escape.

Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck. [ On Water ]

Entre pauvres gens, faut bien qu'on s'aide ... C'est les grands qui font la guerre.

Voyez-vous, monsieur, entre pauvres gens, faut bien qu'on s'aide… C'est les grands qui font la guerre.

Branching paths. The turning of days and seasons and years. Life offered you love sometimes, sorrow often. If you were very fortunate, true friendship. Sometimes war came. You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed.

Antes de la segunda guerra mundial la vida era sencilla. Después ya teníamos sistemas.» Grace Hopper

Then there was the war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love.