logo

Quotes About War

He had been conceived while his father was home on leave in 1915. He was born out of the war and (he had always known it) war would be his fate. There was nothing morbid in this idea; he shared it with many boys his age; it was simply logical and reasonable. But, he said to himself, the worst is over now, and that changes everything. Once again there is a future. The war is over—terrible, shameful, but over. And Ã¢â'¬Â¦ there is hope
~ Irene Nemirovsky
The serving girl—plump, round and rosy-cheeked—moved quickly between the tables. The soldiers smiled at her. She felt torn between the desire to smile back at them, because they were young, and the fear of getting a bad reputation, because they were the enemy—so she frowned and tightly pursed her lips, without, however, quite managing to erase the two dimples on her cheeks which showed her secret pleasure.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
His chauffeur, who was in the same situation as him, said, "If you have to go, you go. But if they think it'll be like '14, they've got it all wrong." (The word "they" in his mind meant some mythical council whose purpose and passion was to send other people to their deaths.) "If they think we'll do that again
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Michel was first imprisoned at Creusot, then taken to Drancy. On 6 November 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz and sent immediately to the gas chamber. There is then a two-year gap in the correspondence.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
At noon, in the noisy dining room where Arlette Corail was finishing lunch, some travellers brought news of the armistice. The women burst into tears. It seemed that the situation was rather confused. In certain places the army was still resisting and civilians had joined them. However, everyone agreed that the army had failed and there was nothing more to be done; they had no choice but to give up. The room was filled with chatter. It was stiflingly hot.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Nearby he saw a man, his head covered in blood, stumble like a drunkard into a thicket; he sat there between the branches in a bizarre and uncomfortable position, his knees folded under him, his chin resting on his chest. He heard an officer shouting angrily, "No doctors, no nurses, no ambulances! What are we supposed to do?
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Now and again he let out a sort of clipped, bitter laugh. "Good God, to have fought in '14 and then see this Ã¢â'¬Â¦
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Odiava la guerra, che minacciava ben più della vita o del suo benessere: distruggeva in ogni istante l'universo della creazione romanzesca, l'unico in cui si sentisse felice, simile a uno squillo di tromba discordante e terribile che facesse crollare le fragili muraglie di cristallo erette con tanta fatica tra lui e il mondo esterno
~ Irene Nemirovsky
For years, everything done in France within a certain social class has had only one motive: fear. This social class caused the war, the defeat and the current peace. The Frenchmen of this caste hate no one; they feel neither jealousy nor disappointed ambition, nor any real desire for revenge. They're scared.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Gy?lölte a háborút. Nem egyszer?en az életét vagy a jólétét fenyegette, hanem sokkal többet – a regények világát rombolta le minden pillanatban, az egyetlent, amelyben boldognak érezte magát. Mint egy diszharmonikus, félelmetes harsona, amire összeomlanak az önmaga és a külsÅ' világ közé oly sok fáradtsággal emelt, törékeny kristályfalak.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
It's sad," said Lucile, thinking of all the girls whose youth was passing them by in vain: the men were gone, prisoners or dead. The enemy took their place. It was deplorable, but no one would even know in the future. It would be one of those things posterity would never find out, or would refuse to see out of a sense of shame.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Planes," Florence replied, looking up at the sky. "Won't they leave me the hell alone?" he thundered. He hated the war; it threatened much more than his lifestyle or peace of mind. It continually destroyed the world of the imagination, the only world where he felt happy. It was like a shrill, brutal trumpet shattering the fragile crystal walls he'd taken such pains to build in order to shut out the rest of the world.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Dar porÈ›ile de fier din toate g?rile erau deja z?vorâte È™i p?zite de soldaÈ›i. MulÈ›imea se ag??a de bare, le zgâlÈ›âia, apoi se retr?gea în dezordine pe str?zile vecine. Femeile fugeau plângând, cu copiii în braÈ›e. Erau oprite ultimele taxiuri. Li se ofereau dou?, trei mii de franci ca s? p?r?seasc? Parisul. <> Dar È™oferii refuzau, nu mai aveau benzin?.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
A newspaper, a kind of radio. Freedom, the Germans secretly paying him a subsidy.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
?i rezonanÈ›a uman? a acestor vorbe, gestul, tot ce dovedea f?r? putin?? de t?gad? c? nu era un monstru însetat de sânge, ci un soldat ca ceilalÈ›i sparser? deodat? gheaÈ›a între sat È™i german, între ??ran È™i invadator.
~ Irene Nemirovsky
Back in 1943, Prince Mikasa Takahito, the youngest brother of Emperor Hirohito, spent a year as a staff officer at the Nanking headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army's expeditionary force in China, where he heard a young officer speak of using Chinese prisoners for live bayonet practice in order to train new recruits. "It helps them acquire guts," the officer told the prince.
~ Iris Chang
One historian has estimated that if the dead from Nanking were to link hands, they would stretch from Nanking to the city of Hangchow, spanning a distance of some two hundred miles. Their blood would weigh twelve hundred tons, and their bodies would fill twenty-five hundred railroad cars. Stacked on top of each other, these bodies would reach the height of a seventy-four-story building.
~ Iris Chang
no race or culture has a monopoly on wartime cruelty.
~ Iris Chang
The great evil, the dreadful evil, that which made war and slavery and all man's inhumanity to man lay in the cool self-justifying ruthless selfishness of quite ordinary people, such as Biranne, and himself.
~ Iris Murdoch
In this connection I must mention too a not altogether rational idea which I had nourished more or less vaguely for a long time: the notion that before I could achieve greatness as a writer I would have to pass through some ordeal . For this ordeal I had waited in vain. Even total war (I was never in uniform) failed to ruffle my life. I seemed doomed to quietness.
~ Iris Murdoch
The television had been banished with its false sadnesses and its images of war. Perhaps he had nodded off over his book.
~ Iris Murdoch
I have been struck down before my life begins. I have already died in the war.
~ Iris Murdoch
Es bueno que la gente vea películas de guerra. Si todo el mundo viera películas de guerra, sabría que la guerra está mal y dejaría de luchar. Lo que sí está mal es que hay demasiadas películas de paz. Por eso la gente no puede ver con sus propios ojos que la guerra está mal.
~ Irvine Welsh
Alla guerra di amor vince chi fugge.
~ Irving Stone