# Quote — Max Brooks, World War Z

> She... she wouldn't leave, you see. She insisted, over the objections of Parliament, to remain at Windsor, as she put it, "for the duration." [...] "The highest distinction is service to others." Her father had said that; it was the reason he had refused to run to Canada during the Second World War, the reason her mother had spent the blitz visiting civilians huddled in the tube stations beneath London, the same reason, to this day, we remain a United Kingdom. Their task, their mandate, is to personify all that is great in our national spirit. They must forever be an example to the rest of us, the strongest, and bravest, and absolute best of us. In a sense, it is they who are ruled by us, instead of the other way around, and they must sacrifice everything, everything, to shoulder the weight of this godlike burden. Otherwise, what's the flipping point? Just scrap the whole damn tradition, roll out the bloody guillotine, and be done with it altogether. They were viewed very much like castles, I suppose: as crumbling, obsolete relics, with no real modern function other than as tourist attractions. But when the skies darkened and the nation called, both reawoke to the meaning of their existence. One shielded our bodies, the other, our souls.

- Author: [Max Brooks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks.md)
- Book: [World War Z](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks/world-war-z.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/World_War_Z#Part_VI:_Around_the_World_and_Above) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks/world-war-z/she-she-wouldnt

## More from this book

> We were in Hammond, Indiana, scouting defenses for the siege of Chicago. He spied a house at the end of a deserted street, completely intact except for boarded up windows and a crashed-in front door. He got a look on his face, a grin. We should have known way before he dropped out of formation, before we heard the shot. He was sitting in the living room, in this worn, old easy chair, SIR between his knees, that smile still on his face. I looked up at the pictures on the mantlepiece. It was his home.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks/world-war-z/we-were-in-hammond.md)

> For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth. That's the kind of enemy we had waiting for us beyond the Rockies. That's the kind of war we had to fight.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks/world-war-z/for-the-first.md)

> The Hospital.. that was our shining moment... the Hospital. [...] An advance team broke through without realizing what was on the other side. They could have withdrawn, blown the tunnel, sealed them in again... One squad against three hundred zombies. One squad led by my baby brother. His voice was the last thing we heard before their radio went silent. His last words: "On ne passe pas!"

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-brooks/world-war-z/the-hospital-that.md)