从出生开始，我们都拥有一颗童真的心。在时光里摸爬滚打，不知道什么时候长大了。只是面对灾难，选择接受并且坚强地活下去。
判断一个人是不是英雄，不应该看他愿不愿意拿自己的生命来博，而是应该看到别人都在惊慌无措甚至做出错误决定时，他是不是能保持镇定。
当我望着美丽而广大无边的星空时，我几乎就要相信天堂的存在了。
I keep checking the time. I promised myself I wouldn't, but I can't seem to help myself. Each time I do it, I put the watch to my ear and listen for the tick. It's still here, softly slicing away the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours. It tells me there are three hours and forty-six minutes left. Charlie told me once
我最害怕、最厌恶的声音并不是爆炸，因为爆炸代表结束，你要不是死了就是没死。最恐怖的声音，当属炮弹划过天际时刺耳如笛的坠落声，因为你不知道它会在哪儿落地，你也不知道这炮弹是不是冲着你而来。
After that no more was ever said between us about Molly. I never asked because I didn't want to know. I didn't want even to think about it, but I did. I thought about nothing else.
I wanted us to be a threesome again, for everything to be just as it had been. But nothing stays the same. I learnt that then. I know that now.
As I watched them I felt a sudden ache in my heart. I don't think it was anger or jealousy, more a pang of loss, of deep grief.
I had known Anna only from a few laughing words, from the light in her eyes, a touch of hands and a fleeting kiss, but I felt an ache inside me such as I had no felt since I was a child, since my father's death.
It was a world I could not be part of, a world I did not belong in.
Molly told us once that she wanted to die right there and then, that she never wanted tomorrow to come because no tomorrow could ever be as good as today.
We knew each other so well. We never argued, not really; perhaps it was because neither of us wanted to hurt the other. We both knew enough hurt had done already, that more would only widen the rift between us and neither of us wanted that.
A Hun in a gas mask is standing over me, his rifle aimed at my head. I have no rifle. It is the end. I braced myself, but he does not fire. He lowers his rifle slowly. "Go boy," he says, waving me away with his rifle. "Go. Tommy, go."
Tonight I want very much to believe there's a heaven, that, as Father said, there is a new life after death, that death is not a full stop, and that we will all see one another again.
But, as I lay awake at nights, that was not what troubled me most. In the next room slept the two people I most loved in all the world who, in finding each other, had deserted me. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I thought of them lying in each other's arms and I wanted to hate them. But I couldn't. All I knew was that I
There is the beginning of day in the night sky, not yet the pale light of dawn, but night is certainly losing its darkness. A cockerel sounds his morning call, and tells me what I already know but do not want to believe, that morning will break, and soon.
If I had a coin in my pocket, I'd turn it over and make a wish. When I was young I really believed in all those old tales. I wish I still could believe in them.
But I mustn't think like that. It's not good wishing for the moon, no good wishing for the impossible. Don't wish,Tommo. Remember. Remembrances are real.
I know that this morning is not the beginning of anything—not new and exciting as Mother says it is—but rather the end of my beginning. Clinging on round Charlie's neck I know that I am living the last moments of my carefree time, that I will not be the same person when I come home this afternoon.
The truth was that I wasn't sure I wasn't, and I needed to find out.
I had to prove myself. I had to prove myself to myself.
They've gone now, and I'm alone at last. I have the whole night ahead of me, and I won't waste a single moment of it. I shadn't sleep it away. I won't dream it away either. I mustn't, because every moment of it will be far too precious.
I learned soon enough that if you don't want to get hurt you keep your head down and you don't answer back, particularly if the other fellow is bigger. But one day I discovered that sometimes you've got to stand up for yourself and fight for what's right, even you don't want to.
I remember I used to have nightmares filled with those monster children, but whatever my nightmare it would always end the same way. I would be out in the woods with Father and the tree would be falling, and I'd wake up screaming. Then Charlie would be there beside me, and everything would be all right again. Charlie always
"Crying won't do your laces up, you know," Miss McAllister says.
"Can't is not a word we use in my class, Thomas Peaceful," she says."We shall just have to teach you to tie your boot-laces. That's why we are all here for, Thomas, to learn. That's why we come to school, don't we?"
"They say we'll always be together, the three of us, for ever and ever. They say that as long as we stick together we'll be lucky and happy." Then she smiled at us."And the stones never lie," she said."So you're stuck with me."
I want to try to remember everything, just as it was, just as it happened. I've had nearly eighteen years of yesterdays and tomorrows, and tonight I must remember as many of them as I can. I want tonight to be long, as long as my life, not filled with fleeting dreams that rush me on towards dawn.
Tonight, more than any oth
一场规模浩大的战争与一次纯粹的个体事件相提并论。而一战以后的人们则是在各种灾难和危机中成长起来，战争的可能性始终存在，几乎每天都会爆发。惟其如此，突如其来的一战对毫无准备的人们所产生的震动和摧毁应是空前的，本雅明准确地概括过这一点，“曾坐着马车去上学的那一代人面对着自由天空下的风景：除了天上的云彩，一切都变了，在这一风景的中央，在毁灭和爆炸的洪流立场中，是微不足道的衰弱人体。”
墓园里有好几个最近才挖的墓穴，但其中只有一个是刚安葬好的，上头插满了鲜花。我认识的安娜，不过是她的几声笑语、她眼中的神韵、偶然碰触到的指尖，和短暂的亲吻而已，但我內心所感受到的痛楚，却是自爸爸去世以来没有过的。我抬头望着有如黑暗的箭刺向明月的教堂尖塔，尽最大的力量去相信她正活在那片无穷的星空里，那座主日学校里教的天堂，和大个儿乔眼中的快乐天堂，但是我怎么也无法相信这些说法，我知道她正躺在我脚下这方寒冷的泥土里。我跪下来亲吻土地，感觉到她的存在。高挂在空中的月亮，透过树林紧跟着我，帮我照亮回到营区的路。
他闭上眼睛，他开始轻柔地唱起歌来。“柑橘与柠檬啊，圣克雷蒙的钟声说。”我轻声地跟着他唱和。我听到连发子弹的回音，结束了，随着那连发的子弹声，我心中的某部分也与查理一同死去。我转身走回谷仓，重回孤独，而我发现在忧伤中的我一点都不寂寞。士兵们一个个立正站在帐篷前，而鸟儿也正在歌唱。
我不停地看表，虽然我答应自己不要这么做，但我就是无法控制自己。每次我看表时，总会把表贴到耳边，聆听它滴答滴答的声音。声音还在，还轻轻地切割着每一秒、每一分、每一时。它告诉我还剩下三小时四十六分。查理曾跟我说，这只表永远不会停，永远也不会让我失望，除非我忘了帮它上发条。世界上最好的表，他说，一只棒透了的表，但它并不是。如果这只表真的那么棒，它做的应该不只有计时的功能!任何老爷表都会计时。一只真正棒透了的表还会牵制时间，让表暂停，如果表停了，时间也会跟着冻结，今夜就不会结束，而黎明也不会来。查理常说，我们在这里的时间是借来的。我不想再借时间了，我希望时间就此停住，这样的话明天就不会来，而黎明就不可能出现了。
麦克·莫波格，生于1943年，在伦敦大学学习英文与法文后，便开始小学的教职生涯，在每天跟孩子说故事的例行活动中，他发掘了自己的另一项才艺－－说故事。30岁时出版第一本书。1976的他和妻子克莱儿一起成立慈善事业“城市儿童农场”，目前在英国有三处这样的地方，它们让城市的孩子有机会和动植物一起生活，以启发孩子们对大自然的喜爱，并从中学得如何与自然共处。
