Paul Hoffman Quotes

The battle had been as hideous as you might expect between one side who were simply not afraid to die and another who regarded death as merely a door to the eternal life.
Paul Hoffman
Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.
Paul Hoffman
...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze. “I understand,” she said. It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he’d become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration.
Paul Hoffman
...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.
Paul Hoffman
- Why you?- (...) I’m the best.- Modest of you.- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.
Paul Hoffman
In such a beast as this..." (he means the army)"...it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy. It was a collective death and not a matter of bravery or even strength, and once it was down it was finished as a battle.
Paul Hoffman
Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.
Paul Hoffman
...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.
Paul Hoffman
Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.
Paul Hoffman
The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...)And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?
Paul Hoffman
We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.
Paul Hoffman
...the older I get, the more I believe that if love is to be judged by most of its visible effects, it looks more like hatred than friendship.
Paul Hoffman
t was once famously said that it is as well that wars are so ruinously expensive, else we would never stop fighting them. However well said, it seems also to be endlessly forgotten that, while there may be just wars and unjust wars, there are never any cheap wars.
Paul Hoffman