Vera Brittain

I suppose it is better to have had such splendid friends as those three were rather than not to have had any particular friends at all, but yet, now that all are gone, it seems that whatever was of value in life has tumbled down like a house of cards.

There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see.

The truth is that the War and the years beyond have made me understand that the most important things about life are the details of life, and that one must live every day as if it were a fact of life.

I made up my mind quite firmly that I would never marry, and that I would never have children.

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

In these days of broken health, it is almost impossible to see a patient and not feel that one is a heartless, conscienceless, money-grabbing humbug.

The War has ruined us for everything.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

The one bond we could not break was the common peril that had confronted us together; our common sorrow over the loss of our four years’ comradeship.

It was still the feeling of the invincible power of the human spirit that I had carried with me through four years of war; the feeling that though everything else was on the move, the spirit was in some way never tired or never beaten.

I wish I could feel as you do, but I can’t. I don’t want to let myself be happy, because then, if something goes wrong, I would be unhappy. It’s safer not to feel.

The world remains, and will always remain, a mystery to man, and in the sense of the last word, it is as mysterious as ever.