A quote from "Regeneration" by Pat Barker

"Rivers had often been touched by the way in which young men...spoke about feeling like fathers to their men. Though when you looked at what they did. Worrying about socks, boots, blisters, food, hot drinks. And that perpetually harried expression of their. Rivers had only ever seen that look in one other place: in the public ward of hospitals, on the faces of women who were bringing up large families on very low incomes...it was the look of people who are totally responsible for lives they have no power to save.
One of the paradoxes of war - one of the many- was that this most brutal of conflicts should set up a relationship between officers and men that was...domestic. Caring."

From Regeneration by Pat Barker.

Quite a long one today, but I didn't have the heart to cut it down any more. Here Rivers, an army psychologist treating patients at Craiglockhart hospital during WW1 , reflects on the odd similarities between officers in WW1 and mothers at home, and the domesticity the static nature of warfare created for the men.

I urge you to read this novel; it examines so many paradoxical aspects of the war as well as questioning the relationship between doctors and patients.

A quote from "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx

"Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centres as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bulls-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought calm and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?"

From The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx. This quotation is beautiful in the novel; Quoyle, who has been through an abusive relationship, pondering on whether he has found love again in a small Newfoundland coast. 

The entire book is beautiful, heartwarming. It's just a simple story about a man rediscovering himself in his homeland after being lost and beaten down in a big city.
I would recommend reading the book if only to make this quotation make more sense.

A quote from "Life Class" by Pat Barker

"He seemed to insinuate himself into the room...Tonks was a dark planet whose presence could be deduced only by a deviation in the orbit of other bodies."

This is from Life Class by Pat Barker. It is about art students at the De Slade art school before and during the first World War. Tonks is a rather critical art professor who has just come into the student's life class to look at their work.
I just love the use of the word 'insinuate'. It captures Tonks' character so well.
You can read the first few pages of the book here.