Hard Tears Soft Laughter Quotes

“Any spring can be remembered and no matter where you are, April is a beautiful month. Barbed wire can fence you in but it can’t stop your senses from reaching out and grabbing the pleasures of spring. The warmth that comes with the soothing gentleness of the rain splashing a captive man’s face as he watches it turn the last bit of winter snow and slush back to water is equalled only by the sight of annual wonderment of the earth swelling and releasing tiny sprouts and tender plants from their winter slumber and let them grow tall and green again, even in the time of war. Much of the beauty of the sweet smel l of the season is marred by the thought that your spring fever is merely the intensification of your fever to live…The warm sunshine strengthens your anticipation for a new life as you know the frozen wheels of the war machine will thaw, the fog bound skies will clear, and with the death of winter the warming ground will soon be firm and fit to carry on a better war. So, let the grass grow green and the vision of being free, grow with it.”
― James William Lauder, Hard Tears Soft Laughter

“I was surprised to find myself not afraid of dying as much as I was afraid of how I would die. Afraid I’d look afraid when the firing began to cut us down…The possibility of death is a strange fear - fear of the scope of your ability- exciting, like the fear of your inability to appear worldly in the eyes of the first girl, you fumbled through the manipulations of seduction.”
― James William Lauder, Hard Tears Soft Laughter