The reason why I love people, and writing about them, is because they don't always respond with hate and anger. If they did, I wouldn't have a story to tell. Who wants to know about someone who was brutalized and became brutal? I'm interested in the exceptions.

— Chris Cleave

There in the sweet sacking smell of the mail bags he understood that he was dying, and it pleased him that he was going in the company of so many soft words home.

— Chris Cleave

There was less of him now. There was less of them all. Officers and men dragged themselves around in uniforms three sizes too big, new holes punched into every belt, every collar hanging loose. They were a garrison of skinny boys performing a play about soldiers.

— Chris Cleave

The true moments of one's life were sadder for the fact that they must always be synchronized with the ordinary: with rail timetables, with breaks in traffic.

— Chris Cleave

They spoke of small things at first, since it was best, when reattaching threads, to begin with the easiest knots.

— Chris Cleave

This helpful war. It makes us better people, and then it tries to kill us.

— Chris Cleave

This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.

— Chris Cleave

We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.

— Chris Cleave

What is the good of influence if one can only use it on strangers?

— Chris Cleave

When death comes you do not stay for one minute in the place it has visited. Many things arrive after death-sadness, questions, and policemen- and none of these can be answered when your papers are not in order.

— Chris Cleave