Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
If people say something rude or off-color, you have to take it with a grain of salt, because they don't know you.
From each one of them rose separate columns of smoke, meeting in a pall overhead, and through the smoke came stabbing flashes of fire as German shells burst with thudding shocks of sound. This was the front line of battle.