Private Peaceful Quotes

“Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“I must survive. I have promises to keep.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“We're much alike, bee, you and me," I said. "You may carry your pack underneath you and your rifle may stick out of your bottom. But you and me, bee, are much alike.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“Tonight, I want very much to believe that there’s a heaven, that death is not a full stop, and that we will all see one another again.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“There's a mouse in here with me. He's sitting there in the light of the lamp, looking up at me. He seems as surprised to see me as I am to see him. There he goes. I can hear him still, scurrying about somewhere under the hayrick. I think he's gone now. I hope he comes back. I miss him already.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“It's no good wishing for the impossible. Don't wish. Remember. Remembrances are real.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“After this night is over, then you can drift away, they you can sleep for ever, for nothing will ever matter again.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“But I didn’t dare. That has always been my trouble. I’ve never dared enough.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“I tried to smile back, but no smile came, only tears.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“There were several recently dug graves in the churchyard, but I found only one that was freshly dug and covered with fresh flowers. I had known Anna only from a few laughing words, from the light in her eyes, a touch of hands and a fleeting kiss, but I felt an ache inside me such as I had not felt since I was a child, since my father’s death. I looked up at the church steeple, a dark arrow pointing at the moon and beyond, and tried with all my heart and mind to believe she was up there somewhere in that vast expanse of infinity, up there in Sunday-school Heaven, in Big Joe’s happy Heaven. I couldn’t bring myself to think it. I knew she was lying in the cold earth at my feet. I knelt down and kissed the earth, then left her there. The moon sailed above me, following behind me, through the trees, lighting my way back to camp. By the time I got there I had no more tears left to cry. The”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“was at playtime. Big Joe came up to school to see Charlie and me. He just stood and watched us from outside the school gate. He did that often when Charlie and I first went off to school together — I think he was finding it lonely at home without us. I ran over to him. He was breathless, bright-eyed with excitement. He had something to show me. He opened his cupped hands just enough for me to be able to see. There was a slowworm curled up inside. I knew where he’d got it from — the churchyard, his favorite hunting ground. Whenever we went up to put flowers on Father’s grave, Big Joe would go off on his own, hunting for more creatures to add to his collection; that’s when he wasn’t just standing there gazing up at the tower and singing Oranges and Lemons at the top of his voice and watching the swifts screaming around the church tower. Nothing seemed to make him happier than that. I knew Big Joe would put his slowworm in with all his other creatures. He kept them in boxes at the back of the woodshed at home — lizards, hedgehogs, all sorts. I stroked his slowworm with my finger, and said it was lovely, which it was. Then he wandered off, walking down the lane humming his Oranges and Lemons”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“Tonight, more than any other night, I want to feel alive.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“I have no pity for them, but no hatred either”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“Charlie often told me we were living on borrowed time out here. I don’t want to borrow any more time. I want time to stop so that tomorrow never comes, so that dawn will never happen.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“proud of him for that. I have the bravest brother in the world.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St. Clements, You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martins. When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey. When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch. When will that be? say the bells of Stepney. I’m sure I don’t know, says the great bell at Bow. Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“I was once told in Sunday school that a church tower reaches up skywards because it is a promise of Heaven. Church towers are different in France. It was the first thing I noticed when I came here, when I changed my world of home for my world of war. In comparison the church towers at home seem almost squat, hiding themselves away in the folds of the fields. Here there are no folds in the fields, only wide open plains, scarcely a hill in sight. And instead of church towers they have spires that thrust themselves skywards like a child putting his hand up in class, longing to be noticed. But God, if there is one, notices nothing here. He has long since abandoned this place and all of us who live in it.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful

“Here there are no folds in the fields, only wide open plains, scarcely a hill in sight. And instead of church towers they have spires that thrust themselves skywards like a child putting his hand up in class, longing to be noticed. But God, if there is one, notices nothing here. He has long since abandoned this place and all of us who live in it.”
― Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful