"Bayonetting isn't my business."
"Your own safety is. How can you bear to let other men fight for you?"
"They're not fighting for me, Mother. You ask them if they are, and see what they'll say to you. They're fighting for God knows what; but they're no more fighting for me than they're fighting for Aunt Emmeline."
"They are fighting for Aunt Emmeline. They're fighting for everything that's weak and defenceless."
"Well, then, they're not fighting for me. I'm not weak and defenceless," said Michael.
"All the more shame for you, then."
He smiled, acknowledging her score.
"You don't mean that, really, Mummy. You couldn't resist the opening for a repartee. It was quite a nice one."
"If," she said, "you were only doing something. But you go on with your own things as though nothing had happened."
"I am doing something. I'm keeping sane. And I'm keeping sanity alive in other people."