Would we be the heroes or the cowards of the piece? Would we follow orders or stick to our principles, if those two things ever conflicted? Would we be the brave ones who still found the capacity for love - and for laughter - even while we were terrified?

Chris Cleave

On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

Chris Cleave

girl stars healing

A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

Chris Cleave

dying doe mean

Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.

Chris Cleave

olympics sick children

We must constantly dare ourselves in the small things, until courage becomes a habit of mind that will serve us when we are unexpectedly tested.

Chris Cleave

dare habit mind

I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.

Chris Cleave

stories writing talking

At some point you just have to turn around and face your life head on.

Chris Cleave

turns faces

We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.

Chris Cleave

stories

Sometimes we don't notice that someone is being brave, because they are only doing something that seems quite easy for us.

Chris Cleave

brave easy sometimes

I was carrying two cargoes. Yes, one of them was horror, but the other one was hope.

Chris Cleave

little-bee horror two

It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.

Chris Cleave

sunshine clouds children

We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.

Chris Cleave

dying secret mean

At this point in time the war [ WWII] is close enough to still feel hotly personal to a writer, yet far enough away so that jingoism and heroics are no longer required.

Chris Cleave

jingoism enough war

Our stories are the tellers of us.

Chris Cleave

stories

Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.

Chris Cleave

current-affairs affair life-is

What is an adventure? That depends on where you are starting from. Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator. You live in a world of machines and you dream off things with beating hearts. We dream of machines, because we see where beating hearts have left us.

Chris Cleave

girl dream country

Everyone carries the weight of WWII with them in their recent family history, and yet it is rarely spoken about within families, because veterans and survivors don't tend to talk.

Chris Cleave

veteran survivor weight

You may think that's funny Osama but you never can squeeze every last bit of pride out of a human being. It's like a tube of toothpaste. You can twist it and you can crush it but there's always a tiny bit left isn't there?

Chris Cleave

crush pride thinking

So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.

Chris Cleave

little-bee refugee refuge

The ways in which we are able to express courage also depend on the hand life deals us.

Chris Cleave

able hands way

We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.

Chris Cleave

wwii books-and-movies book