"I am fearing because I am seeing that the only way not to be fighting is to die. I am not wanting to die."
In this quotation, Agu depicts the terrifying nature of war. He is trapped in a place he doesn't know doing things he hates himself for doing, but he's afraid to die, the natural consequence of refusing. No matter what happens to him, he doesn't want to die.
". . .So we were playing all this game then and thinking that to be a soldier was to be the best thing in the world because gun is looking so powerful and men in movie are looking so powerful and strong when they are killing people, but I am knowing now that to be a soldier is only to be weak and not strong, and to have no food to eat and not to eat whatever you want, and also to have people making you do thing that you are not wanting to do and not be doing whatever you are wanting which is what they are doing in movie. But I am only knowing this now because I am soldier now."
Before being drafted, Agu used to play soldier with his friends. They admired soldiers and even envied them because they seemed so powerful. In reality, Agu has learned from his time in the military that soldiers really don't get to make choices and thus have no real power. They are subjected to the will of their commander. His realization is an example of the loss of innocence which only actual experience can provide.
"I'm walking walking walking to where the sun is setting. I'm looking at it and wanting to catch it in my hand and to be squeezing until color are dripping out from it forever. That way everywhere it is always dark and nobody is ever having to see any of the terrible thing that is happening in this world."
Tormented by the terrible things which he's been forced to do, Agu seeks ways to repent and make up for his wrongdoing. Here he expresses his desire to blot out the sun by sacrificing himself. By squeezing the sun to death, he hopes to bring about the darkness so that nobody has to see the evil around them any longer.
"And now the woman is praying to God... I am laughing laughing because God is forgetting everybody in this country."
Though religious in his childhood, Agu has now grown up and rejected his childhood beliefs. Religion will be forevermore associated with childishness to him because it belonged to a time of innocence and naivety. To Agu, religion is incompatible with the horrors he's seen in the war, so he finds it humorous that the woman still prays devoutly.
