98 Quotes by Pat Barker

They were men, and free. I was a woman, and a slave. And that’s a chasm no amount of sentimental chit-chat about shared imprisonment should be allowed to obscure.

[...] but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality?

I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

And the Great Adventure - the real life equivalent of all the adventure stories they'd devoured as boys - consisted of crouching in a dugout, waiting to be killed. The war that had promised so much in the way of 'manly' activity had actually delivered 'feminine' passivity, and on a scale that their mothers and sisters had hardly known. No wonder they broke down.

The process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

The sea was calm, almost inaudible, a toothless mouth mumbling pebbles in the darkness.

I had him in my cab once.Who? Neville askedRupert Brooke. He was good, him. "There's some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England".That would be the bit with my nose under it; just fucking drive, will you?

We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.

The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being made to fight for, but in the end you do the job.