If my home country needs my life, I am ready to give my life — for my country, for my children, for the future.

She largely set aside her writing after the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, to focus on documenting [alleged] war crimes and working with children on or near the frontline.

Like it or not, most people prioritize their own safety over the education of someone else’s child. I wanted to make them see that if we didn’t prioritize education now, it would be a public safety matter later.

Country comes before politics.

to put loyalty to country over loyalty to political party.

Everything I did, I did for my country.

Her advice would come out especially during any patriotic moment. She was afraid I would develop an attachment to a country and would not flee early enough.

Yes, everything for the country, we must love it absolutely and be ready to sacrifice everything for it, down to our most private preferences. And this is a little more difficult than offering one's carcass or fortune. I prize nothing more than that beautiful title: Patriot before all else.

I felt a special obligation to see that the men who volunteered to face death for their country's honour, should be equipped with the best their country could provide them with in order to fight its battles, and that the most effective use should be made of their valour in the battlefield. The events of the last few months had shaken any confidence I ever had in the wisdom of military leadership and I was full of apprehension lest the flower of Britain's youth should be mown down through professional rigidity, narrowness and lack of vision.

I knew the truth all the same: that she was doing it for her own good…she was doing it because she was overwhelmed: by life, by the war, by the thought of having to try and make it without Papa.

In pursuit of her dreams, she had to juggle wedlock, motherhood, the justice system, helping the needy and the world's disadvantaged.

To investigate [alleged] war crimes, Victoria had joined an organisation called Truth Hounds, acquired a flak jacket, helmet and camera and started travelling to places from which the Russians had been driven out.

…They were cooks, they were laborers, they were fighters, they maintained supply lines. It’s interesting to me how women get involved in a conflict, and this was a terrible conflict. So I wanted to make dresses that would protect these women metaphorically.

I'm the kind of guy who puts other people first. Particularly if there’s danger up ahead. Now I’m not saying I’m any more cowardly than the next man, unless that next man is any other man besides my clone.