# Birdsong

- Author: [Sebastian Faulks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks.md)
- Quotes: 37
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong

## Quotes

> Shells will fall on the reserve lines and we will not stop talking.

p. 421 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/shells-will-fall.md)

> If they could shout loud enough they might bring the world back to it's senses, they might laugh loud enough to raise the dead.

p. 344 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/if-they-could.md)

> Poor Fritz. He must be mad by now under those guns.

p. 218 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/poor-fritz-he-must.md)

> There was only violent death or life to chose between; finer distinctions such as love, preference or kindness were redundant.

p. 203 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/there-was-only.md)

> It is as though you stop living. Your mind goes dead.

p. 136 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/it-is-as-though.md)

> I feel guilty that I have survived when all the others are gone.

p. 390 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/i-feel-guilty.md)

> Stephen was moved by the thought of his fellow countrymen fighting this foreign war.

p. 161 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/stephen-was-moved.md)

> It made him laugh, mad-eyed and bearded, like a hermit in his cave.

p. 464 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/it-made-him.md)

> I don’t value my life enough.

p. 164 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/i-dont-value.md)

> Stephen was appalled by the idea of being separated from the men he had fought with. He despised the war, but could not leave until he had seen it through until the end.

p. 190 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/stephen-was-appalled.md)

> But their breathing and their hearts worked as though one body.

p. 168 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/but-their-breathing.md)

> Jack already immune to death, let their white faces drift from his memory.

p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/jack-already-immune.md)

> The place from which the boy had came was not just a better place but a better world.

p. 198 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/the-place-from.md)

> He spoke no French and viewed all buildings, fields and churches as profoundly alien.

p. 141 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-spoke-no-french.md)

> This is not a war. It is an exploration of how far men can be degraded.

p. 150 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/this-is-not.md)

> Any man shirking his duty would be shot on the spot.

p. 216 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/any-man-shirking.md)

> There was a perverse appeal in the thought he could complete what no enemy had managed.

p. 450 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/there-was-a-perverse.md)

> They were breaking free into the darkness of normality, with food and drink, the sound of women and the sight of men whose first thought would not be to kill them.

p. 201 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/they-were-breaking.md)

> Non-believers finding faith in fear.

p. 219 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/non-believers-finding-faith.md)

> His own [childhood] seemed so long ago that it was as is someone had lived it for him.

p. 425 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/his-own-childhood.md)

> They mocked him for still being alive.

p. 455 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/they-mocked-him.md)

> Perhaps in some way he did not understand, that was what the two officers had been doing: perhaps all that talk about life-drawing was just a way of pretending everything was normal.

p. 142 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/perhaps-in-some.md)

> He was surprised by his own brutality, he assumed that it was caused by fear.

p. 172 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-was-surprised.md)

> He could remember this compassion but he no longer felt it.

p. 440 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-could-remember.md)

> We’ve all gone now. The whole of our little group.

p. 455 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/weve-all-gone.md)

> He depended on the resilience of certain men to nerve himself to his unnatural life.

p. 142 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-depended-on-the.md)

> Although he had little idea of time, the burned images of the preceding days lived in his memory with static clarity.

p. 157 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/although-he-had.md)

> The empty expressions that filled so many letters home did not seem to describe the part that Stephen had played in his life.

p. 184 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/the-empty-expressions.md)

> Once more in ragged suicidal line. They trudged towards the pattering death of mounted guns.

p. 232 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/once-more-in-ragged.md)

> And a recent one [food parcel] addressed to Wilkinson, some weeks dead had been a cause of particular celebration.

p. 212 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/and-a-recent.md)

> He wanted to answer them with steel and explosives, with metal tearing into soft tissue and spinning on the bone. When the war was over there would be a place for contemplation, even generosity, but in the meantime he treasured his hatred as a means of saving his own life and those of his men.

p. 197 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-wanted-to-answer.md)

> No child or future generation will know what this was like.

p. 422 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/no-child-or-future.md)

> What had taken place beneath that placid irregular roof seemed to belong to a world as peculiar and abnormal as the one in which he now lived.

p. 158 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/what-had-taken.md)

> Still, the more sardonic they became, the more he cared for them. Still he could not quite believe them, he could not comprehend the lengths to which they allowed themselves to be driven.

p. 282 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/still-the-more.md)

> He blamed the NCOs, who blamed the officers; they swore at the staff officers who blamed the Generals.

p. 141 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/he-blamed-the.md)

> For a moment he was baffled. It seemed to have no agricultural purpose, there was no planting or ploughing to be done. Then he realised, they were digging a mass grave.

p. 215 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/for-a-moment.md)

> There would be some decorum in their dying beneath the country they had fought so long to protect.

p. 449 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sebastian-faulks/birdsong/there-would-be-some.md)