[Preface] Writers are borrowers and thieves. [JLJ - A nice way to introduce your confession that you stole the idea for the Tripods from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.]

p.5 we - or some of us - were to conduct a reconnaissance. We knew almost nothing of the Tripods - not even whether they were intelligent machines or vehicles for alien beings. We must know more before we could hope to fight them successfully; and there was only one way to get that knowledge. Some of us, one at least, must penetrate into the City of the Tripods, study them, and bring back information.

p.13 We could not sulk forever in the mountains... Our hope of survival lay in attack.

p.15 Your intelligence is an asset

p.37 What a fool I had been. I shivered, and cursed my idiocy, and shivered again.

p.129 When I was off-duty, I used to lie on my bed in my refuge and think of more lies to tell him: it was a way of passing the time.

p.130-131 A few days ago he was saying that he was feeling unhappy because during the zootleboot a tsutsutsu went into spiwis, and therefore it was not possible to izdool the shuchutu. At least, it sounded something like that... then mentioned that the pooshlu had stroolglooped. [JLJ - I would explain this, but I can't at the present moment. I am waiting to izdool my shuchutu.]