We have the divinity of our great misery. And our solitude, with its toilsome ideas, tears and laughter, is fatally divine. - Henri Barbusse

Stop war? Impossible! There is no cure for the world's disease.

There is no paradise except that which we create in the great tomb of the churches. There is no hell, no inferno except the frenzy of living.

"I detected sarcoma." He put his finger on his neck. "Right here."

The other man nodded — his head seemed to be nodding continually — and muttered:

"Yes. There's no possibility of operating."

"Of course not," said the old specialist, his eyes shining with a kind of sinister irony. "There's only one thing that could remove it — the guillotine."