Colin: Are you doing any writing?
John: Yes; of course.
Colin: You ought to stick to the business, and do your own work in the evenings.
John: ... We fought like hell out there all day and all night; we didn’t just let off a few guns in the evenings, as a sort of hobby, after we’d spent the day doing something else. If we’re going to have any sort of world for our children after those years of bloody slaughter, it seems to me we’ve got to fight like hell all the time now. It’s no good writing anything unconsidered these days. One must read, and think, and meet people, and be quiet.... You can’t serve God and Mammon. There are some jolly good things in that book; Colin, it’s dreadful to spend one’s best energies doing something, when you feel you ought to be doing something else.
Colin: You’ve got an Urge.
John: I’ve got something horrible. My father told me it was a Niche: you say it’s a Nurge!
Colin: It’s what Quakers get. The spirit urges and they feel wicked if they don’t follow.
John: I feel miserable.
Colin: Same thing.
John: And, incidentally, while I mess on day after day, I’m getting my life into more of a muddle. I feel a cad about Frankie, and I feel a cad about Toby; I really don’t know what I ought to do about either of them.