a book full of history
"He was a beautiful horse that looked as though he had come out of a painting by Velasquez".(15). The gypsies believe the bear to be a brother of man. So do the Indians in America, Robert Jordan said. And when they kill a bear they apologize to him and ask his pardon. They put his skull in a tree an they ask him to forgive them before they leave it". (p.43)
"To me it is a sin to kill a man. Even Fascists whom we must kill. Since we do not have God here any more, neither His Son nor the Holy Ghost, who forgives ? I don not know. You have not God any more ? No, Man, Certainly not. If there were God, never would he have permitted what I have seen with my eyes. Let them have God" (p.44).
"He slept until the sound of airplane motors woke him. Lying on his back, he saw them, a fascist patrol of three Fiats, tiny, bright, fast-moving across the mountain sky. These three were Heinkel one-elevens, twin-motor bombers" (p.79).
BELGIUM IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR :
He remembered a Belgian boy in the Eleventh Brigade who had enlisted with five other boys from his village. It was a village of about two hundred people and the boy had never been away from the village before. When he first saw the boy, out at Hans'Brigade staff, the other five from the village had all been killed and the boy was in a very bad shape. He had a big, blond, ruddy Flemish face..." (p.142)
"We shot French. We have shot Belgians. We have shot others of divers nationality.." (p.436)
FRANCO ONLY TWICE MENTIONED :
"Lister is a Gallego from the same town as Franco. I wonder what these Gallegos think of this snow now at this time of year. They have no high mountains such as these and in their country it always rains and it is always green". (p.201)
"I am a journalist. But like all journalists I wish to write literature. Just now, I am very busy on a study of Calvo Sotelo. He was a very good fascist; a true Spanish fascist. Franco and these other people are not" (p.253).
ABOUT PASIONARIA :
"Pasionaria says it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees !".
Do you know your Pasionaria has a son thy age in Russia since the start of the movement ? It's a lie, Joaquin said. She would not do such a thing as keep a son hidden in Russia out of the war" (p.319).
ABOUT GENERAL CUSTER :
"They said if he had been with Custer that day he never would have let him be sucked in that way. How could he ever not have seen the smoke nor the dust of all those lodges down there in the draw along the Little Big Hor unless there must have been a heavy morning mist ? But here wasn't any mist. George Custer was not an intelligent leader of cavalry, Robert, his grandfather had said. He was not even an intelligent man"."(p.350)
ABOUT THE SPANIARDS :
"What a people they have been. What sons of bitches from Cortez, Pizarro, Menendez de Avila all down through Enrique Lister to Pablo. And what wonderful people. There is no finer and no worse people in the world. No kinder people and no crueler. Forgiveness is a christian idee and Spain has never been a Christian country. The people had grown away from the Church because the Church was in the government and the government had always been rotten. This was the only country that the reformation never reached. They were paying ofr the Inquisition now. (p.368).