Charles Todd Quotes

There's a beauty in birds on the wing,
That stirs the heart and makes earthbound creatures
Long for flight, but the larks above the battlefield
Are silenced by the sounds of war.
I have watched birds out at sea,
Catching the wind,
And longed to follow them,
To some safe place far from here.

Revenge was personal as a rule. Otherwise it was pointless.

Now he realized that somehow those who had served in France and elsewhere knew a world that couldn't be shared. How could he tell his sister - or even his father, if the elder Rutledge was still alive - what had been done on bloody ground far from home? It would be criminal to fill their minds with scenes that no one should have to remember. No one.

That's the point of working with one's hands, you see. It gives the mind something else to do besides worry.

Boys have never been to war. It's easy to believe that it's all a game. That the dead will get up off the grass in time for tea.

I often speak to returning service people about their experiences while serving. Whether in 1915 or 2005, the core issue of facing death on a daily basis remains.

No one ever stepped forward to protect me, Inspector. I wonder why I should feel any driving sense of duty to protect anyone else. Let me tell you something about love. It can be very cruel and very greedy. I've had done with it. And that has given me a freedom that I cherish.

Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?"
Surprised, Davies said, "He's a war hero isn't he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He's visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn't go around killing people!"
With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?

I lost my own daughter and I'll never have another. The hurt doesn't go away, no matter what you tell yourself. It's there day and night. I'd have killed any man who touched her. Why should I stand for such talk about another man's child, if I wouldn't have stood for it about my own?

I was a corporate trouble-shooter for many years, and I know what it is like to walk very carefully into a hostile environment.

Wishful thinking, that time might heal - it seldom healed anything, only making scars that were often tender to the touch, and ugly.

Love teaches you humility - patience - understanding.

Gallantry," he often told his men, "is an act of great courage under fire, of bravery beyond the call of duty. But if it kills your comrades as well or puts the battle in jeopardy, then it is arrant pride and foolishness. Learn to know the difference.

During high school I worked in a retirement home. I spent many wonderful hours hearing from service men and their widows about WWI.

I was always a killer. It was my skill, and they'd taught me well. She taught me love.

What did the poet say? That the saddest words of tongue or pen were what might have been?

What of the hundreds of faceless men on the streets looking for work, trying to pick up the threads of family life, hoping that the dying had made a better Britain, and finding they were lost in it. Faceless men ... People stepped around them now, ignored the brave boy who'd marched away to glory and now begged on the street because a one-armed man couldn't work. He thought sometimes, in the dark corners of his mind, that the dead were the lucky ones. They hadn't been disillusioned.

It isn't actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It's a matter of what the jury believes, once we've told them what evidence there is on either side. Given the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!

I decided to become a policeman to speak for the dead. They have no one else, you see. Somewhere there's always proof of what happened, some piece of evidence that will obtain a conviction. It's important for the guilty to be brought to justice, I think. Without justice, there's chaos.

She grinned. "I seen that you was sleeping in the sitting room