Quotes & Sayings About Verdun

Whereas the Greeks had Zeus and Athena, we had people who still lived in Verdun. They had a lot to bear on their shoulders. They had to invent the whole world themselves. They were supposed to have supernatural powers and achieve sainthood. When really they just found themselves peering into the mirror above the bathroom sink, looking to see how they were aging. Sitting in the bathtub, smoking a cigarette, terrified of death like the rest of us. — Heather O'Neill

I got active in this business of politics and self-government in 1958 when my father, who was serving in the U.S. Army, took us to the battlefield of Verdun. — Newt Gingrich

Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. They read about Verdun or Stalingrad without comprehension, sitting in a comfortable armchair, with their feet beside the fire, preparing to go about their business the next day, as usual.
One should really read such accounts under compulsion, in discomfort, considering oneself fortunate not to be describing the events in a letter home, writing from a hole in the mud. One should read about war in the worst circumstances, when everything is going badly, remembering that the torments of peace are trivial, and not worth any white hairs. Nothing is really serious in the tranquility of peace; only an idiot could be really disturbed by a question of salary.
One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired, as I am writing about it now, at dawn, while my asthma attack wears off. And even now, in my sleepless exhaustion, how gentle and easy peace seems! — Guy Sajer

You're one to talk about talking crap, Forester." Dunstan's voice interrupts the memory, and I can't help but feel a little grateful. "Accusing my dad of poisoning the swamp? What a bunch of bull."
"It's not bull,"I snarl. "Your dad's dumping trash into the swamp and you know it!"
Dunstan finally loses it and stands up. The boat tilts dangerously. Melanie and the twins shriek, grasping the sides like they're glued to them.
"You two sit down this minute!" Babette bellows. She's holding onto the motor for dear life. Neither of us listens.
"You wanna run that by me again?" Dunstan growls. His fingers curl into fists.
"Your. Dad. Is. Poisoning. The. Swamp." I let each word out slowly like Dunstan's a dumb little kid who needs help understanding. — Colleen Boyd

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work. — Carl Sandburg

Devo and The Cramps didn't get big until they went to New York City. Chrissie Hynde didn't get big until she moved to London. When I was growing up, there wasn't even a place to play - just one little bar. If we wanted to have a gig, then we had to drive 45 minutes up to Cleveland. — Dan Auerbach

I haven't seen anyone rely on the ground game this much since the battle of Verdun. — Dennis Miller

No wonder the summer solstice had been such a fun day in northern Europe before Christian missionaries arrived from the sunny south. If priests had not driven sex underground, what would the north have been like? Would art have flourished in the absence of sexual repression? What about artillery and fortification? The Reformation? The Thirty Years War? The French Revolution? The final perfection of murder as blood sport at Verdun and Dresden and in the Gulag?

In short, where would we be without Jesus? — Charles McCarry

The macabre who lived through the war have a story they loved to tell about the soldiers of the Foreign Legion giving a ball in the expanses around Verdun and dancing with the corpses. Alabama's continued brewing of the poisoned filter for a semiconscious banquet table, her insistence on the magic and glamor of life when she was already feeling its pulse like the throbbing of an amputated leg, had something of the same sinister quality. — Zelda Fitzgerald

Nowhere can it rain harder and with a more tiresome persistence than in California during the brief season when it rains at all. — Gertrude Atherton

I probably learned most at MIT by teaching and working with Peter Diamond, who acted like a big brother to me during my time in the department. — Eric Maskin

The human louse somewhat resembles a tiny lobster, and he lives chiefly in your trousers. Short of burning all your clothes there is no known way of getting rid of him. Down the seams of your trousers he lays his glittering white eggs, like tiny grains of rice, which hatch out and breed families of thier own at horrible speed. I think pacifists might find it helpful to illustrate thier pamphlets with enlarged photographs of lice. Glory of war indeed! In war all solderies are lousy, at the least when it is warm enough. The men that fought at Verdun, at Waterloo, at Flodden, at Senlac, at Thermopylae - every one of them had lice crawling over his testicles. — George Orwell

Three times Jan had been called to the colours (the army), but each time had been deferred because of his deplorable physical condition..when every male who could stand halfway erect was being shipped to Verdun to undergo a radical change in posture from the vertical to the eternal horizontal — Gunter Grass

He had volunteered early, rather than waiting to be conscripted, for he felt a duty and an obligation to serve, and believed that ... being willing to fight for his country and the liberty it represented, would make some small difference ... His idealism was one of the casualties of the carnage [of Verdun]. — Iain Pears

and well-informed insights into their insular world. We all took our seats as a picture of a smiling Paul Verdun in toque was projected up onto screens. White jackets streamed from the kitchen: the amuse-bouche, a shot glass filled with a bite-sized baby octopus cooked in its "natural essence," extra virgin olive oil from Puglia, and a single — Richard C. Morais

Republicans are always criticizing President Obama for using the teleprompter. Is that a big deal? After eight years of George Bush, I'm glad we have a president that can read. — Jay Leno

Will you be?" I asked, suddenly anxious. "Will you really be here?"
"As long as you want me," he assured me.
"I'll always want you," I warned him. "Forever. — Stephenie Meyer