Road To Hell Quotes & Sayings

The road to hell was paved with the bones of men who did not know when to quit fighting. — Paulette Jiles

I'm supposed to be guilty of all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors, but when you get right down to it, I'm really only guilty of one: wondering. The road to Hell, you say, is paved with good intentions. Charming. But actually it's paved with intriguing questions. You want to know. Man do you want to know. — Glen Duncan

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

Stairway to Hell or Yellow Brick Road? Why don't you give your Magic 8 Ball a shake and see if it's ready to play again. — Kami Garcia

Tell your sister I'm all right," Mrs Whatsit said to Charles. "Tell her my intentions are good." "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Charles intoned. — Madeleine L'Engle

The doors of Hell are never bolted or barred, to those who belong there. — Simon R. Green

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels. — Andrew Motion

This definition was not just limited to establishing a method for exploring the specificity of one human group in relation to another. It also desired, from the outset, to renounce the prejudiced and racist ethnography about which the West has never tired of berating itself. The intention could not have been loftier, but the well-known saying tells us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because — Mario Vargas-Llosa

O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all! — Franz Kafka

A beautiful road does not create enough reason to make a journey on that road, because the road to Hell is often a beautiful road as well! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My road to hell isn't paved with good intentions - or bad - it's just my road. — Rainbow Rowell

Leamas saw. He saw the long road outside
Rotterdam, the long straight road beside the
dunes, and the stream of refugees moving
along it; saw the little aeroplane miles away,
the procession stop and look towards it; and
the plane coming in, nearly over the dunes;
saw the chaos, the meaningless hell, as the
bombs hit the road.
"I can't talk like this, Control," Leamas
said at last. "What do you want me to do? — John Le Carre

What the hell is the matter with Eddie? Ruth was thinking. If he doesn't stop staring at me, I'm going to drive off the road!
Hannah had also noticed that Eddie was staring at Ruth. What the hell is the matter with Eddie? Hannah was thinking. Since when did the asshole take an interest in a younger woman? — John Irving

Emma?" "Hmm?" "You took everything I told you really well." "I've never understood the woe-is-me thing. I mean, the hottest guy in town just told me he wants me badly enough to bite me and make me like him, and now he wants to drag me home and ravish me. I'm going to, what, run screaming into the night? Oh, no! I'm a Puma now! My life is over! Sob!" Emma rolled her eyes. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's freaking me out a bit, and it's probably going to cost me a fortune in bikini waxing, but it's not the end of my world." Max nearly ran off the road. "You get a bikini wax?" "Wouldn't you like to know?" "Hell yes. — Dana Marie Bell

There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive. — Elie Wiesel

Let's walk down the road that has no end
Steal away where only angels tread
Heaven or hell or somewhere in between
Cross your heart to take me when you leave
Don't go
Please don't go
Don't go without me — The Civil Wars

Sometimes the road to Heaven leads you straight through hell. If it's hard going, chances are, you are on the right path. — Mark J. Jannetta

I don't care what becomes of Russia. To hell with it. All this is only the road to a World Revolution. — Vladimir Lenin

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro' all its regions.
A Dog starv'd at his Master's Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus'd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear. — William Blake

Pleasure at simply being there had him swinging fast across the road, shooting up the snaking lane carved into the rock, then, in shock, slamming on the brakes to avoid crashing into a high iron gate.
He scowled at it for a moment before the intercom beside his car buzzed on.
"Templeton House.May i help you?"
"What the hell is this? Who put this damn thing up?"
"I-Mr. Joshua?"
Recognizing the voice, he struggled to bank down on his irritation. "Annie, open this ridiculous gate,will you? And unless we're under attack, leave the damn thing open. — Nora Roberts

With the palms zipping past and the big sun burning down on the road ahead, I had a flash of something I hadn't felt since my first months in Europe - a mixture of ignorance and a loose, "what the hell" kind of confidence that comes on a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard straight line toward an unknown horizon. — Hunter S. Thompson

I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

[Dad] So your intentions were good. That's what matters.
[Anthony] But isn't, like, the road to hell paved with good intentions?
Yeah, well, so's the road to heaven. And if you spend too much time thinking about where those good intentions are taking you, you know where you end up?
Jersey?
I was thinking 'nowhere,' but you get the point. — Neal Shusterman

The road to hell is paved with careful planning. — Marty Rubin

If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style. — Jim Butcher

We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the load will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track, but we have set our soul ahead upon a certain goal ahead and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back. — Vince Lombardi

A patrol had been sent out to look at the road between two towns, but some Portuguese had come along and told the patrol that this was one of the English magician's roads and was certain to disappear in an hour or two taking everyone upon it to Hell - or possibly England. — Susanna Clarke

You can hear some artists, hear five of their albums and still have no idea who they are. But if you've heard most of what I've recorded, you know me. You go from 'Honesty' to 'Going Through Hell' - you can listen to the hits, and they pretty much reflect who I am. 'Take a Back Road' is the same thing. — Rodney Atkins

And that - he pointed ahead - is the road to Hell. That's where we're going. I have always heard it was paved with good intentions, said Simon — Cassandra Clare

Maybe the good intentions paving the road to hell are really the dark shadows that line the alley of righteousness? — J.A. Huss

What would you rather have?"
"Cheeseburger and a small fry. Coke classic. Better yet, dope classic."
"Sure. I'll take a milkshake. What's the special flavor this week, chocolate Jack Daniels?"
"Strawberry scotch."
"Stick one of those paper umbrellas in mine."
"Shove a syringe in mine. And a plastic tombstone. RIP, baby. He was born a rock star. He died a junkie."
"Rock in peace."
[...]
"He wanted the world and lost his soul. [...] Sold it all for rock and roll. Lost his heart in a needle. Found his life in the grave. The road to hell is paved in marijuana leaves. Now he rocks in peace. — L.F. Blake

Like it or not, the road to Hell is paved with sustainable bamboo flooring. — Chuck Palahniuk

Conquest directed toward
the interior of the country is called repression or propaganda ("the first step on the road to hell," according
to Frank). Directed toward the exterior, it creates the army. — Albert Camus

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one
the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts, ... Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape. — C.S. Lewis

How many millions there are who don't want to go to Hell, but they don't want to get off the road to Hell. — Alan Cairns

Oh, don't pull your hand away from me, I've promised myself that maybe by the end of this impossible narrative I shall understand, oh maybe it will be on Hell's road that I shall be able to find what we need - but don't pull your hand away, even though I now know that the finding has to come on the road of what we are, if I can succeed in not sinking completely into what we are. — Clarice Lispector

His instincts told him he should stay the hell away from her. That he was on a road paved to hell, but he couldn't stay away. He'd watched her every night for a month, played a silent game with her of pretending the other didn't exist, and it never worked. He wanted to know the secret behind her eyes. He wanted to know why she carried a gun at night, ordered a glass of Johnny Walker Blue she never drank, and why she carried so much pain inside. — Nina D'Angelo

While the road of good intentions might end in hell, the people who tried to fill the potholes along the way deserved at least some credit. — Stephen King

There's the road to heaven, and there's the road to hell, and there? That's the road to Faerie. — Ellen Kushner

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one
the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. — C.S. Lewis

The remarks about my reaching the age of Social Security and coming to the end of the road, they jolted me. And that was good. Because I sure as hell had no intention of just sitting around for the rest of my life. So I'd whip out the paints and really go to it. — Norman Rockwell

No sane person wants hell to exist. No sane person wants evil to exist. But hell is just evil eternalized. If there is evil and if there is eternity, there can be hell. If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. It is true, as people often say, that "hell just feels unreal, impossible." Yes. So does Auschwitz. So does Calvary. — Peter Kreeft

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in & out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods? — Barbara Kingsolver

the road to programming hell is paved with global variables, — Steve McConnell

She had passed the in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound road sign a long time ago. Hell, she was cruising the neighborhood streets of tonnage by now. Limping backward, she raised her middle finger to the Fae King. — Thea Harrison

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress. — Philip Roth

The road to heaven is paved with fulfilled desires, and to hell with frustrated ones. — Theodore Dalrymple

Is It Unloving to Speak of Hell? If you were giving some friends directions to Denver and you knew that one road led there but a second road ended at a sharp cliff around a blind corner, would you talk only about the safe road? No. You would tell them about both, especially if you knew that the road to destruction was wider and more traveled. In fact, it would be terribly unloving not to warn them about that other road. — Randy Alcorn

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day ... fifty the day after that ... and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it's - GASP!! - too late. — Stephen King

It had been a marvelous childhood. Damn near perfect. If he was not leading the life he'd anticipated, if he sometimes lay in bed and wondered what the hell he was doing robbing coaches in the dead of night - at least he knew that the road to this point had been paved with his own choices, his own flaws. — Julia Quinn

Misery is a no U-turns, no stopping road. Travel down it pushed by those behind, tripped by those in front. Travel down it at furious speed though the days are mummified in lead. It happens so fast once you get started, there's no anchor from the real world to slow you down, nothing to hold on to. Misery pulls away the brackets of life leaving you to free fall. Whatever your private hell, you'll find millions like it in Misery. This is the town where everyone's nightmares come true. — Jeanette Winterson

Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog ... all right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. — Ernest Hemingway,

An infernal machine that produces every minute an impressive amount of poor, 26 million poor in 10 years are 2.6 million per year of new poor, this is the road, well, the road to hell. — Hugo Chavez

I think I've done a lot in this business, whether through screwball methods or not I don't know, that has helped other bands. I made a kind of road for them, you might say. If I raised my price, they found out about it and raised theirs. But somebody had to start it, to make the first move. You have to have the courage and confidence in your own ability. You have to know what the hell and who the hell you are in this business. Music may change, but I don't think that ever will. — Benny Goodman

The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lamp posts that light the path. — Saint John Chrysostom

You want to know what I believe? I believe in fate, but I also believe in free will. Meaning, there's a path, but we're free to veer away from it. The only problem is that there's no way to know whose path we're following on any given moment. Our own? Our fate's? Other people are on their on paths, too. What happens when we intersect? What happens when someone else wipes our path clean, and we're left with no road to follow? Is that fate? Is that when free will kicks in? Is the path there, but invisible?
Who the hell knows? — Brigid Kemmerer

You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you'll get no argument from me . . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn't this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn't firmly an extra word? Isn't it redundant? Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. — Stephen King

The senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour.
Hubert Humphrey, as quoted by Biden, p. 134 — Joe Biden

I thought, there is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment ... There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else. — Rob Sheffield

My parents meant well, but the road to Hell is paved with publicity stunts. — Chuck Palahniuk

This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway, oh no, this is the road to hell. — Chris Rea

Piece of cake." Brandon's grin had a certain very familiar male cockiness about it. "Dad says this time around I
was his sucker punch." His grin faded slightly and his expression grew more serious as he continued. "But when we
realized you were in danger, Dad went wild. I doubt if any car, even that old 'vette Dad used to drive, ever made the
kind of time on River Road your Buick made last night. Dad really is a hell of a driver, isn't he? — Jayne Ann Krentz

Here's a taxidermist's," Bill said. "Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?"
"Come on," I said. "You're pie-eyed."
"Pretty nice stuffed dogs," Bill said. "Certainly brighten up your flat."
"Come on."
"Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog."
"Come on."
"Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog."
"We'll get one on the way back."
"All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault. — Ernest Hemingway,

She wasn't sure good intentions always paved the road to hell, but they for sure weren't the highest standard of medical care. She — Joe Hill

He held up his hand, and in it was ...
Oh, God.
The neon-pink vibrator, glowing in the dark now. It was following her, stalking her, all the way down the yellow brick road to hell. — Jill Shalvis

For kilometres on end the road was totally jammed with vehicles drawn up three or four abreast - petrol tankers, ammunition trucks, teams of horses,ambulances. It was impossible to move forwards or back. Russian combat aircraft now arrived in wave after wave, and threw bombs into that unprotected, inextricable mass. This is what hell must be like. — Christopher Duffy

Two miles up the road to hell. No point blaming those women because they couldn't imagine it. He could hardly realize it himself, sitting there by the window, stirring his coffee, bubbling with excitement about his room, the work he intended to do there, and the new idea that was beginning to take root in his mind. — Pat Barker

The most extreme types, like Murray Rothbard, are at least honest. They'd like to eliminate highway taxes because they force you to pay for a road you may never drive on. As an alternative, they suggest that if you and I want to get somewhere, we should build a road there and charge people tolls on it. Just try generalizing that. Such a society couldn't survive, and even if it could, it would be so full of terror and hate that any human being would prefer to live in hell. — Noam Chomsky

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs. — Larry Wall

Two flights of steps bordered either side of the Hill from Hell. I didn't know who constructed them or when, but it was sometime before I was born. Maybe even before Daddy was born. In one stretch, the steps were made of large semiflat stones. In another, wood. In a third, slate. All of them were in terrible disrepair, but it was still easier to climb them than to try to walk up the dirt road itself, especially since Stacy and I were weighed down with our backpacks, slices of pie in Tupperware containers, bottles of Pepsi, and a bunch of cassette tapes. We stopped halfway up to catch our breath. I really didn't need to, but I could tell Stacy was not used to trudging up hills. — Diane Chamberlain

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions but the path to misery is cobbled with trying to live up to other people's status updates — LaToya Hankins

I've learned something on the road, traveling around: state shapes. The easier it is to draw the shape of the state, the harder it is to live in that state. So, if you live in a regular polygon, get the hell outta there. You gotta move to a squiggly area. Culture's attracted to squiggles. — Demetri Martin

At the beginning Earth was a hell; then it became a heaven! Hell is the road leading to heaven! Chestnut tastes good after roasted! When the sand lives through hell, it becomes a beautiful glass! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

think I'd say the same. I had to go to hell to find the person I am today. And in the end, the road through hell led me straight to him. — A. Zavarelli

There's a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it's a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don't want to know are best at. — Mark Lawrence

The road to Hell is always shiny and alluring. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward she would tell me, 'I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.' And I would believe-for a few months-that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom's Hell is for Children tour was going to be her last tour? — Augusten Burroughs

A gurgling chuckle came from behind him; Jonas had heard it often enough to know that it signified something as close to laughter as the creature ever got. Yet you believe those things won't come if you serve your Lord? You know what they say about the road to Hell, Judas. — Kaine Andrews

The road to Hell, you say, is paved with good intentions. Charming. But actually it's paved with intriguing questions. — Glen Duncan

And besides, we're not really all that different. Although I think I'm a little more ... "
"What?"
"Optimistic." She nudged him with her shoulder. "You're Eeyore."
He blinked. "You think I'm Eeyore?"
"You tell me. I take my empty glass and try to fill it up with what happiness I can find. Friends, family, my work ... And then there's you."
He raised a brow. "Me."
She nudged him again, looking playful and damn sexy while she was at it. It was the short shorts with the boots, he decided. Or everything. It was everything.
"You take that empty glass," she said, happily analyzing him. "And you wonder what the heck to do with it. You don't need the glass, you don't have time for the glass. Hell, you'll just drink from a spigot if you get thirsty. And in any case, there's probably another one up the road if that one runs out, so - — Jill Shalvis

It has often been said that the British acquired their empire in a fit of absent-mindedness, as consequence of automatic trends, yielding to what seemed possible and what was tempting, rather than as a result of deliberate policy. If this is true, then the road to hell may just as well be paved with no intentions as with the proverbial good ones. — Hannah Arendt

The road to hell was paved with good intentions. — Marie Hall

The road to hell is paved with reasonable religion with a non-anxious god. Most days, I'm pretty happy driving down that road. But I keep running into this Crazy Fellow along the way. At every stop light, he jumps up and down to get my attention. He pounds on my window asking me where the heck I think I'm going. He stands on the front bumper, shouting at me to turn around. When all else fails, he throws himself in front of the car. He's such a drama queen. — Mark Galli

I had been told I was on the road to hell, but I had no idea it was just a mile down the road with a dome on it. — Abraham Lincoln

The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals — Ernest Hemingway,

I might have speculated on my chances of going to Heaven; but candidly I did not care. I could not have wept if I had tried. I had no wish to review the evils of my past. But the past did seem to have been a bit wasted. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities. — Apsley Cherry-Garrard

The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality. — Dallas Willard

would be hell to pay when he got home. But the devil was in the back seat, keeping time to the music, and hell was a long way up the road. — T.C. Boyle

I'm not sure intentions make much difference in the end. I hear the road to hell is paved with them. She meant it frivolously, but Olivia answered seriously, "Yes, but one does have to live with one's self." "Not necessarily ... There are any number of ways to avoid living with one's self. Gin, for example." "Yes, but you're still there at the base of it aren't you. Only with a terrible head in the morning. — Lauren Willig

Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going. — Hunter S. Thompson

And he began, "What chance or destiny
has brought you here before your final day?
And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?"
"Up there in life beneath the quiet stars
I lost my way," I answered, "in a valley,
before I'd reached the fullness of my age.
I turned my shoulders on it yesterday:
this soul appeared as I was falling back,
and by the road through Hell he leads me home."
"Follow your star and you will never fail
to find your glorious port," he said to me — Dante Alighieri

As is often the case when I travel, my vulnerability
like not knowing what the hell I'm going to do upon arrival
makes me more open to outside interactions than I might be when I'm at home and think I know best what needs to be done. On the road, serendipity is given space to enter my life. — Andrew McCarthy

The road to Hell is paved with the best of conscious intentions. — Elizabeth F. Howell

Road to hell paved in unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault. — Ernest Hemingway,

If you charge off with some political agenda that is not informed by clarity, you are going to end up with business as usual. The road to hell is paved with good intentions but it is not paved with clarity. — Terence McKenna

If thou rememberest that thou art going to heaven, thou wilt not sleep on the road. If thou thinkest that hell is behind thee, and the devil pursuing thee, thou wilt not loiter. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Well it looks like the road to heaven
But it feels like the road to hell
When I knew which side my bread was buttered
I took the knife as well
Posing for another picture
Everybody's got to sell
But when you shake your ass
They notice fast
And some mistakes were built to last. — George Michael

Dean took out other pictures. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. — Jack Kerouac

Now comes the picture of mass defeat, the most awesome spectacle of the war. It is in the bent bodies of old women who poke among ruins seeking some miserable object that will link their lives with the old days. It is in the shamed darting eyes of the defeated. It is in the faces of the little boys who regard our triumphant columns with fear and fascination. And above all it is in the thousands of beaten, dusty soldiers who stream along the roads towards the stockades. Their feet clump wearily, mechanically, hopelessly on the still endless road of war. They move as haggard, gray masses, in which the individual had neither life nor meaning. It is impossible to see in these men the quality that made them stand up and fight like demons out of hell a few shorts months ago. — Audie Murphy

He decided to go over a couple of blocks to Michael's Tavern for something cold, and as he walked beside the road he felt his anger burning up in the heat of noon, and saw himself, as he often did when he was outdoors on hot days, being forged in enormous fires for some purpose beyond his imagining. He was only walking down a street toward a barroom, and yet in his own mind he took his part in the eternity of this place. It seemed to him - it was not the first time - that he belonged in Hell, and would always find himself joyful in its midst. It seemed to him that to touch James Houston was to touch one iota of the vast grit that made the desert and hid the fires at the centre of the earth. — Denis Johnson