Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
When you're 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you're 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you're 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
We shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army; and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.
You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest.
Elderly people and those in authority cannot always be relied upon to take enlightened and comprehending views of what they call the indiscretions of youth.
In time of war, soldiers, however sensible, care a great deal more on some occasions about slaking their thirst than about the danger of enteric fever. Better known as typhoid, the disease is often spread by drinking contaminated water.
Before the war it had seemed incredible that such terrors and slaughters, even if they began, could last more than a few months. After the first two years it was difficult to believe that they would ever end.