Bonnie

“What is the bravest thing you've ever said? asked the boy.
'Help,' said the horse.
'Asking for help isn't giving up,' said the horse. 'It's refusing to give up.”
― Charlie Mackesy

“It’s hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment. During the days that Bonaparte stayed in Boulogne, there was a feeling of urgency and privilege. He woke before us and slept along after us, going through every detail of our training and rallying us personally. He stretched his hand towards the Channel and made England sound as though she already belonged to us. To each of us. That was his gift. He became the focus of our lives. The thought of fighting excited us. No one wants to be killed but the hardship, the long hours, the cold, the orders were things we would have endured anyway on the farms or in the towns. We were not free men. He made sense out of dullness.”
― janette winterson

“He didn’t believe in the future, only the present, and as our future, our years, had turned so relentlessly into identical presents, I understood him more. Eight years had passed, and I was still at war, cooking chickens, waiting to go home for good. Eight years of talking about the future, and seeing it, turn into the present. Years of thinking, ‘in another year, I’ll be doing something different,’ and in another year doing just the same.

Future. Crossed out.

That’s what the war does.”
― janette winterson

“New recruits cry when they come here and they think about their mothers and their sweethearts and they think about going home. They remember what it is about home that holds their hearts; not sentiment or show but faces they love. Most of these recruits aren’t seventeen and they’re asked to do in a few weeks. What vexes the best philosophers for a lifetime; that is, to gather of their passion for life and make sense of it in the face of death.

They don’t know how, but they do know how to forget, and little by little they put aside the burning summer in their body, and all they have instead is lust and rage.”
― janette winterson