"Here were students, dock-workers, clerks and labor-organizers, farmers. Most were unacquainted with each other, but they came together now with the warmth and familiarity of old friends; they told each other of their work in their respective countries; of their friends and families. They spoke of the European political scene, of the imperative necessity for the Loyalist Government to drive the foreign invader from Spain; you felt that with each of them, no matter how diverse his previous training, the Spanish struggle was a personal issue, something deep and close. This in itself, considering the disparity of their origin, was a major political phenomenon. They spoke no word of the actual business of war; they did not speculate on the nature of artillery or air attacks, of machine-gun fire. You felt: many of these men will never see their friends or families again; they don't know what they're getting into; their idealism has blinded them to the reality of what they will have to face. And you knew immediately that you were wrong; that they were so far from being blind that it might be said of them that they were among the first soldiers in the history of the world who really knew what they were about, what they were going to fight for- and that they were ready and eager to fight. Their very presence on the French frontier was an earnest of their understanding and their clarity; no one had made them come, no force but an inner force had brought them."

“I was four years in the war," Merkel said. "German army." "What was it like?" "It ain't bad," he said. "It ain't bad at all; you get used to it. You never see the enemy; you shoot and shoot and you never see 'em. It ain't bad at all." We talked of the World War and the Spanish War. Merkel told us that he had done underground work in Germany, and of the discontent among the German workers. "Every ship what comes to Hamburg," he said, "brings literature for 'em; they eat it up. I fight against Hitler, that bastard," he said. We talked of conditions back home; of Roosevelt's popularity and liberalism, and of the reactionary opposition they were trying to whip up again; of its chances of success. "In the end," Merkel said, "you can't fool the workers. Takes 'em maybe a long time to wake up with the newspapers saying lies all the time, but you can't fool 'em.”

“Hemingway was eager as a child, and I smiled remembering the first time I had seen him, at a Writers' Congress in New York. He was making his maiden public speech, and when it didn't read right, he got mad at it, repeating the sentences he had fumbled, with exceptional vehemence. Now he was like a big kid, and you liked him. He asked questions like a kid: "What then? What happened then? And what did you do? And what did he say? And then what did you do?" Matthews said nothing, but he took notes on a folded sheet of paper. "What's your name?" said Hemingway; I told him. "Oh," he said, "I'm awful glad to see you; I've read your stuff." I knew he was glad to see me; it made me feel good, and I felt sorry about the times I had lambasted him in print; I hoped he had forgotten them, or never read them. "Here," he said, reading in his pocket. "I've got more." He handed me a full pack of Lucky Strikes.”

“You cannot really believe in the existence of a foreign country until you see it.”

“You know what I got half a mind to do?" the driver said. "What?" "Head this damn junk for the border." "Have a cigarette," I said. I wondered if he would head for the border and what I would do if he did, but he didn't. "The detail's all fucked-up," he said. "Where's the Lincoln? Where's the Macpap? The British? The Franco-Belge? Nobody's seen fuck-all of 'em. The bastards are driving to the sea," he said. "Maybe they've got to Tortosa already; we'll find out. If France don't come in now, we're fucked ducks. Mucho malo," he said. "Mucho fuckin malo.”

“The Swede who had walked in his sleep- he had not been wounded. Before we went into Batea he was in our peloton with Tabb and Moish Taubman and Johnson and Sid... He seemed to be stupid, but he wasn't. He never spoke, he never asked questions, but he had a face like a snake- he had the attentive expression of a reptile, pale, hard, unmoving eyes, a wide thin mouth, an impassive face. They said he had refused to retreat; he had set up his machine-gun on a hill, and told the others he was with, "Go on, I cover you." They left him there on the hill alone, his machine-gun banging away as the tanks came up.”

“Whenever the mind has led the body to an important decision, events have a way of assuming, momentarily, a half-symbolic nature. The mind plays that trick on you, and everything you see seems to partake of the quality of the decision you have made.”