"The secret of success in battle lies often not so much in the use of one's own strength but in the exploitation of the other side's weaknesses." (Preface, p. vi)

"...I was too weary really to wake up—I couldn't even be sure I wasn't dreaming." (p. 3)

"The woman in the house had also become quiet; but the silence was even more frightening. Resting on its spindly legs, the machine had the look of an insect digesting its prey." (p. 5)

"I could still see it too clearly—the insectlike shape towering above the ruins of the farmhouse, the snaky tentacles plucking up pathetic bits and pieces and tossing them away ... it hadn't been funny then, and it wasn't now." (p. 16)

"I couldn't recall much of the way things had been between him and my mother, except for the silences, which sometimes lasted days ... he talked his...