Ash

“You don't have to be a seasoned tactician to realize that your ass is cold.”
― Michael Herr, Dispatches

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.”
― Richard Hillary, The Last Enemy: The Memoir of a Spitfire Pilot

“Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and sees no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue : it is the main spring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist's desire for fame and is at once the support and compensation of the honest man's integrity; it leers even cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenceless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Sincerity cannot protect you from its snare nor humour from its mockery.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, ASHENDEN: OR, THE BRITISH AGENT

“I love the capital. The wind on the health might call for a time, but the facile glitter of the city was the stronger. Self-esteem, I suppose, is one cause; for in the city, work of man, one is somebody, feet on the pavement, suit on the body, anybody's equal and nobody's fool; but in the country, work of god, one is nothing, less than the earth, the birds, and the trees; one is discordant - a blot.”
― Richard Hillary, The Last Enemy: The Memoir of a Spitfire Pilot