These are modern times, nicht? Not our grandmother’s days. There’s more to life than finding some lord and master and being under his thumb. I swear I’ll never live in such a prison!

War, for most women, is about the destiny of one person. For me, it became three – the one I feared was dead, and the two of you who now are.

It seemed wrong that flowers could bloom, the world be so beautiful, after so much destruction.

The quiet is funereal, air as thick and still as if it never moves; as if all sound has been smothered out, the way a blanket subdues a fire. The atmosphere has weight, and simultaneously seems a vacuum.

Most of the women correspondents couldn’t make a marriage last. We’d tasted too much of life on our own terms and you didn’t find men who could manage with that.

Those things we think will always last are suddenly gone, and it almost feels as if they never were, or were simply a dream.

In the end, they’ll protect their own interests by sending boys off to slaughter, just like last time. Like they always do.

They’d been lovers for nearly a year. More and more, she waited, and knew less and less, never sure when she’d see him next, or how they’d spend the time together. Others presumed she was one of his secretaries and Eva knew that even for those women, the rhythms of his schedule – and his moods – were unpredictable.

Even for survivors, now, there is nothing but roles. Like a bizarre reversal of animals playing dead, we are expected to act alive when we are dead inside. There is nowhere for the truth of one’s feelings.

When we find the courage to face our pain, it always helps heal others, as well as ourselves”.