Michael Leunig Quotes

War destroys people's souls. Most people focus on physical injuries, but the invisible injuries can take a lifetime to heal and affects the lives of generations to come.

The lives of prisoners of war after they are returned is almost never discussed, never explored.

I never got away from the war. Not because I was obsessed with it in those years, but because it was the event of my generation and I started out covering it so I stayed with it.

Even if a woman is abused a very long time ago, it comes out in her life in a negative way.

The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.

An abused childhood affects the entire life... It affects every facet of the life.

I did not know that the wounds of war are often invisible.

War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing.

Don't ever go to war. Even if you win, the battle is never over inside you.

The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.

What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.

Sometimes I think we're exposed to things we shouldn't be exposed to too early. I think that sets the tone to a person's whole life. Trauma.

America's a very traumatized society.

I think kids growing up, if they were picked on and feeling inferior at 12, they're going to feel that way at 72. You just deal with it better. I'm serious.

I think if we understand better the impact of war on women and children, we might be more careful about the wars we start.

I believe the things that happened to me as a child scarred me terribly, and I wish somebody would have helped me with some of the things that happened.

What distresses me at times is that I meet a lot of people in their 40's, 50's, 60's, who still say they're a victim of child abuse.

Grozny's been largely rebuilt. But at the same time, I think the war is very much being waged inside its survivors.

The wars don't end when you sign peace treaties or when the years go by. They will echo on until I'm gone and all the widows and orphans are gone.

If you are a real soldier, you never get over the war.

At least eighty thousand of our sons are dead or mangled. A million more will die of poverty and disease. Every issue could have been settled and better settled without the loss of a drop of blood

Not only do wars create incredible suffering, but they engender deep hatreds that can last for generations.

The big 'Aha!' moment is that the trauma never goes away.

My whole life, I've seen things I can't unsee.

When you grow up around sadness, it affects the way you see the world.