“After all my years of playing soldiers, and then of reading History, I have almost a mania to be in the East, to see fighting, and to serve.”

“As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.”

“Some say God caught them even before they fell.”

“And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hidIts bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.”

“This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

“Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.”

“Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”

“These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.”

“The implicit optimism of the [field service post card] is worth noting—the way it offers no provision for transmitting news like “I have lost my left leg” or “I have been admitted into hospital wounded and do not expect to recover.” Because it provided no way of saying “I am going up the line again,” its users had to improvise. Wilfred Owen had an understanding with his mother that when he used a double line to cross out “I am being sent down to the base,” he meant he was at the front again. Close to brilliant is the way the post card allows one to admit to no state of health between being “quite” well, on the one hand, and, on the other, being so sick that one is in hospital.”

“The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.”

“After all my years of playing soldiers, and then of reading History, I have almost a mania to be in the East, to see fighting, and to serve.”