#wwi

When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. . . . I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it. ↗

— Irwin Shaw

#warfare #wwii #age

...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go. ↗

— John Boyne

#friendship #holocaust #inspirational #life #love

God, there must be a meaning. Fiercely he was certain that there must be a meaning. Surely, while we live we are not lost. Oh Janos, Janos my brother! Surely we are not lost--while we live. ↗

— John Hepworth

#death #fiction #hope #last-lines #the-long-green-shore

But miracles still happen, even if we don't think they do. ↗

— Diet Eman

#dutch #holocaust #jesus-christ #righteous-gentile #wwii

The only reason for this treatment was that they were Jews. ↗

— Muriel Knox Doherty

#holocaust #jews #wwii #experience

Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#ironic #rights #war #wwii #yossarian

here’s a toast to Alan Turing born in harsher, darker times who thought outside the container and loved outside the lines and so the code-breaker was broken and we’re sorry yes now the s-word has been spoken the official conscience woken – very carefully scripted but at least it’s not encrypted – and the story does suggest a part 2 to the Turing Test: 1. can machines behave like humans? 2. can we? ↗

— Matt Harvey

#cs #gay #glbt #history #poetry

If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a man my son. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#historical-fiction #war #wwi #love

The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure. ↗

— Max Hastings

#russia #stalingrad #war #wehrmacht #wwii

I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I’ll watch for that book. ↗

— J.D. Salinger

#novel #short-stories #war #writing #wwii