121 Quotes by Dalton Trumbo

They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the thing they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child. They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look.

Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellar’s good and deep but if i’m killed before I wake remember god it’s for your sake amen.

He would be an educational exhibit. People wouldn’t learn much about the anatomy from him but they would learn all there was to know about war. That would be a great thing to concentrate war into one stump of a body and to show it to people so they could see the difference between a war that’s in the newspaper headlines and liberty loan drives and a war that is fought out lonesomely in the mud somewhere a war between man and a high explosive shell.

There’s nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you’re so great your name will never be forgotten and who’s that great? The most important thing is your life little guys. You’re worth nothing dead except for speeches.

Now the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of things people don’t understand. Take the Einstein theory. Take taxes. Take love. Do you understand them? Neither do I. But they exist. They happen.

He thought if I never have anything else I will always have dawn and morning sunlight.

How does a bird feel when it dies? A fish, a bug... the infinite worm? I think it weeps.

He could want it to be a dream forever and that wouldn’t change things.

Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not.