Paul Fussell

The past, which as always did not know the future, acted in ways that ask tobe imagined before they are condemned. Or even simplified.

i find nothing more depressing than optimism.

Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.

The implicit optimism of the [field service post card] is worth noting__he way it offers no provision for transmitting news like __ have lost my left leg_ or __ have been admitted into hospital wounded and do not expect to recover._ Because it provided no way of saying __ am going up the line again,_ its users had to improvise. Wilfred Owen had an understanding with his mother that when he used a double line to cross out __ am being sent down to the base,_ he meant he was at the front again. Close to brilliant is the way the post card allows one to admit to no state of health between being __uite_ well, on the one hand, and, on the other, being so sick that one is in hospital.

Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.

Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

If we do not redefine manhood, war is inevitable.

Irony is the attendant of hope and the fuel of hope is innocence.