“Fundamentalists radicalize children for illegal terrorism, nationalists radicalize children for legal terrorism, I radicalize children for peace-n-oneness... Give me a hundred humanitarian hearts, I'll wipe out the very concept of war. Pack your flags with other talismans, there is no greater superstition than the superstition of nation.”
Source: Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim
“My name is Sami, and I live in the time of the troubles. It is a time of guns and bombs. It is a time that has lasted all my life, and I am ten years old.”
Source: Sami and the Time of the Troubles: A Moving Story About a Lebanese Boy in a War-Torn City for Kids
“I find a piece of wood that looks like a gun and help Amir find one, too.
"My brother has a real gun," he says.
We run, we hide, we pretend to shoot, we pretend to die. I see my mother at a stall buying flowers, and she frowns at me. She does not like for me to play this game.”
Source: Sami and the Time of the Troubles: A Moving Story About a Lebanese Boy in a War-Torn City for Kids
“War, he realized, had a presence. On Avcırga, war was built into all things, forms and functions revolving around its grim demands. Technology was, with few exceptions, heavily armored, designed to withstand shock and heat. Buildings were entrenched and fortified to weather artillery storms and radiation bursts, to keep those who sheltered there alive through endless battles. Cities were strategically placed and designed around redundant systems. All so that casualties would be minimized when the inevitable conflict came.”
“Victory [in war] is not beautiful. Those who consider it beautiful delight in the massacre of people”
Source: Tao Te Ching
“Haiku means nothing beyond what it is. A pond in summer, a leaf in the wind. It's human consciousness located in nature. It's the answer to everything in a set number of lines, a prescribed syllable count. I wanted a haiku war," he said. "I wanted a war in three lines. This was not a matter of force levels or logistics. What I wanted was a set of ideas linked to transient things. This is the soul of haiku. Bare everything to plain sight. See what's there. Things in war are transient. See what's there and then be prepared to watch it disappear.”
Source: Point Omega
“My brother was a shell of his former self, his heart deeply scarred from everything we had endured.”
Source: Across the Great Ocean: Awakening
“It hadn't occurred to us that our country might go to war, and that if it did, we'd be the ones fighting it.”
Source: Alive Day: A Memoir
“My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His
None ever was in love with me but grief.
She wooed me from the day that I was born;
She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,
And left me there forlorn.
The birds that in my garden would have sung,
She scared away with her unending moan;
She slew my lovers too when I was young,
And left me there alone.
Grief, I have cursed thee often—now at last
To hate thy name I am no longer free;
Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,
I love no love but thee.”
“I had never heard of an IED until Cleve's injury. He told me that day that they could be made with marbles. When the bomb goes off, the marbles explode, glass shards shooting in every direction toward their victims. As he spoke, I imagined the innocent balls of glass I played with as a child, white with blue cat's-eyes in the center, the same shade as my mother's and my eyes. The toys wait in darkness, forced to play in a war they weren't designed for.”
Source: Alive Day: A Memoir