D Day Quotes - Page 2

• There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  War, Sacrifice, Boys

  Barbara Kingsolver (2009). “Animal Dreams: A Novel”, p.14, Harper Collins

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• The Dead and Those About to Die is a gripping, first-hand account of the desperate battle for Omaha Beach on D-Day by the legendary 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. On the 70th anniversary of that momentous event, John C. McManus’s tale of courage under fire is a vivid reminder that freedom isn’t free and that when the chips are down stalwart American soldiers will always answer the call of duty.

  Carlo D'Este

  Beach, Fire, Hands

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• At the edge of the cliffs, the wind is a smack, and D-day becomes wildly clear: climbing that cutting edge into the bullets.

  John Vinocur

  Cutting, Climbing, Wind

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• Important days don't look like anything special when they start. Invariably, the sun rises and people wake up. Coffee is swilled and eggs are swallowed. Everybody goes about the business of acting like their lives matter and then, no matter how important the events of the day end up being, the sun invariably sets. The sun rose before the soldiers stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day, and the sun set after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed. Sunrises and sunsets are real jerks about putting things in perspective.

  Josh Lieb

  Beach, Real, Coffee

  Josh Lieb (2009). “I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President”, p.157, Penguin

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• [D-Day] means to me a beginning of the freedom of Europe. The freedom was the achievement of the military adversaries of the Germans.

  Manfred Rommel

  Military, Mean, Europe

  Source: archives.nbclearn.com

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• What if?' history is a tricky game, but there is no doubt that the senior planners of D-Day - including Eisenhower and the British general Bernard Montgomery - believed that the Double Cross operation had played a pivotal role in the victory.

  Ben Macintyre

  Senior, Games, What If

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• I move countries every three or four years. I was born in London, and we lived in Canada. Then we lived in Saudi Arabia until the Gulf War broke out, when we were forced to leave. Then we hop-scotched for a while from Holland back to Canada back to Saudi Arabia. Then there was D-day, so we had to get out again.

  Hannah Simone

  Country, War, Moving

  "Esquire Presents Me in My Place with Hannah Simone". www.esquire.com. April 22, 2012.

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• I am encyclopaedic on World War II. My dad took me to D-Day beaches when I was a kid. I was there four years ago - every five years they have a remembrance on D-Day beaches and I would have liked to have been there and done my bit.

  Eddie Izzard

  Beach, Dad, War

  "Valkyrie - Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• How still the morning of the hallow'd day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song.

  James Grahame

  Song, Morning, Voice

  Henry Kirke White, James Grahame (1856). “The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White and James Grahame”, p.216

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• Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?

  Nancy Gibbs

  Senior, Running, Responsibility

  Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy (2012). “The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity”, p.118, Simon and Schuster

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• The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.

  Antony Beevor

  War, Stupid, Crime

  "Antony Beevor says D-Day bombing 'close to a war crime'" by Jamie Doward, www.theguardian.com. May 23, 2009.

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• President Bush paid homage Wednesday to World War II veterans of Normandy at the D-Day Memorial. Later that night, his twin daughters paid a special tribute to World War II veterans of the Pacific. They each downed two kamikazes.

  Argus Hamilton

  Daughter, War, Night

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• It's true, we tend to write about the same thing over and over again because this is our trauma. If I had been in World War II, I might have been writing about D-Day over and over again.

  Anne Roiphe

  War, Writing, World

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I'd not seen that in England.

  Richard Dawson

  War, Color, Europe

  "Family Feud". TV Series, www.imdb.com. (1976 - 1985).

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