"If only our country hadn't been invaded. If only we could have carried on the way we used to, watching other people's war on television. If only we'd been better prepared, and thought more about this stuff" (Page 3).

"I don't know about the others but I'd started blocking out fears about danger and death. Seeing so many people die, including some of my friends, had made me feel weird about my own life. I'd moved gradually into a state of thinking where I didn't dream much about the future" (Page 12).

"Sometimes there aren't any questions any more. Sometimes there's nothing to debate. If we have any choice at all, it might be as simple as this: to die fighting or to die as cowards" (Page 25).

"I needed time to think ... It's not an easy thing to face your own death. Not when you're feeling young and alive and...