- It wasn't worth it. No war is worth it. No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives let alone thousands. T'isn't worth it...the First World War, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That's what caused it. The Second World War...Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T'isn't worth it.
- Opposite my bedroom there is a window and there is a light over the top. Now when the staff go into that room they put the light on. If I was half asleep the light coming on was the flash of a bomb. That flash brought it all back. For eighty years I've never watched a war film, I never spoke of it, not to my wife. For six years, I've been here [in the nursing home]. Six years it's been nothing but World War One. As I say, World War One is history, it isn't news. Forget it.
- [looking out over a nearly endless sea of white military gravestones] When you look at it, why did they die?
- [giving a speech at the Menin Gate war memorial] Let us remember our brethren who fell - on *both* sides of the line.
- [talking about a fellow soldier who was killed in front of him in the trenches] He died. I held his hand for the last thirty seconds of his life. [wipes tears from his eyes]
- If any man tells you that he went into the front line and he wasn't scared, he's a liar.
- Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims.
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