Nathan Cull

“I stuck out a hand and tried to make up for lost ground. 'What did you say her name was, this chippy of yours?' I asked; but somehow it didn't come out as witty and ironic; just gawky and ill-bred.”
― Julian Barnes, Metroland

“We had only just lain down on the bed when the raid started. It made no difference. Death never mattered at those times - in the early days I used to pray for it: the shattering annihilation that would prevent for ever the getting up, the putting on of clothes, the watching her torch trail across to the opposite side of the common like the tail-light of a slow car driving away.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

“The hardness in her eyes and face disturbed me. 'Why is she so cold?' I asked myself. 'Why?' Perhaps she sensed my anxiety, my hunger to communicate, because for an instant her expression softened, and she seemed to offer a bridge between us. But I felt that it was a temporary and fragile bridge swaying high above an abyss.”
― Ernesto Sábato, The Tunnel

“A nameless pimple in the middle of nowhere. how many of those there have been. How difficult they would be to find after the war. A barren hump of unmemorable ground. It became important to a few human beings for a few hours of a November afternoon. Some of them lay on and about it in holes: some others wanted it. It wouldn't matter a great deal in the eternity of time who any of them were. Nor, in the larger pattern of conflict, why the hill was so desirable.”
― Fred Majdalany, Patrol