Geraldine Brooks

What war has done to March himself is left unstated. It is in this void that I have let my imagination work.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads...Sometimes, true courage requires inaction; that one sit at home while war rages, if by doing so one satisfies the quiet voice of honorable conscience.

I've always imagined paradise as something like a library.