Today the Somme is a peaceful ...

Today the Somme is a peaceful but sullen place, unforgetting and unforgiving. ... To wander now over the fields destined to extrude their rusty metal fragments for centuries is to appreciate in the most intimate way the permanent reverberations of July, 1916. When the air is damp you can smell rusted iron everywhere, even though you see only wheat and barley.
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 Paul Fussell

Quotes from the same author

Travel at its truest is thus an ironic experience, and the best travellers . . . seem to be those able to hold two or three inconsistent ideas in their minds at the same time, or able to regard themselves as at once serious persons and clowns.
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 Paul Fussell
Travel sharpens the senses. Abroad one feels, sees and hears things in an abnormal way.
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 Paul Fussell
So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.
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 Paul Fussell
A more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class.
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 Paul Fussell
And the ideal travel writer is consumed not just with a will to know. He is also moved by a powerful will to teach.
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 Paul Fussell