“...how often the early stages of change of cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar...the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.” — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
“But I shot the dog myself. I took him into the barn holding on to his collar. He knew something bad was going to… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper. — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
'Undertones of War' by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars, — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer. — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
My grandmother's first husband was a spiritualist medium. What fascinates me about that is the balance between conviction and sincerity and trickery, which is… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
“It was... the Great White God de-throned, I suppose. Because we did, we quite unselfconsciously assumed we were the measure of all things. That… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
Sometimes, in the trenches, you get the sense of something, ancient. One trench we held, it had skulls in the side, embedded, like mushrooms.… — Pat Barker Copy Share Image
