Wayne Larson

“It was decades later that Rubel confessed that this U.S. plan for nuclear war he participated in reminded him of the Nazis’ plans for genocide. In his memoir, he referred to a time in an earlier world war when a group of Third Reich officials met at a lakeside villa in a German town called Wannsee. It was there, over the course of a ninety-minute meeting, that this group of allegedly rational men decided among themselves how to move forward with the genocide in a war they were presently winning—World War II—so as to ensure total victory for themselves. Millions of people needed to die, these Reich officials agreed.”
― Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario

“What annoyed the troops and augmented their sardonic, contemptuous attitude toward those who viewed them from afar was in large part this public innocence about the bizarre damage suffered by the human body in modern war.”
― Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War

“Auden’s “Epitaph on a Tyrant” as a kind of quiet, unintelligible blessing: Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”
― Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

“What could be worse than not being at home in our own house? What hope do we have of finding rest outside of ourselves if we cannot be at ease within? Whether or not we appreciate them, we must always live in close proximity to our faculties: they are our greatest relatives and most faithful friends. And yet, as if they were resentful of the damage our imperfections have done to them, our faculties seem to be waging war upon us. Peace, peace, Christ says, my friends.”
― Teresa de Ávila, The Interior Castle