“A hero is someone who simply got too frightened to use his good sense and run away, then somehow lived through it all.”

“In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.”

“How foolish it is to run away with a man who's already run away with someone else…”

“Perhaps a hero is someone who doesn’t register his own vulnerability. Is it courage, then, if you’re too daft to know you’re mortal?”

“Then tell them we've all got meanness in us… But tell them we have some good in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That's why we've got to make sure we pass it on.”

“I'm in love with someone good and kind and gentle, and he's seen the darkness too, but somehow we've become each other's light.”

“The salary simply means becoming dependent on someone's pocket. Like a good dog who waits for his master to throw the bone at him, after having eaten all the meat.”

“Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.”

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”

“His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.”