People
It was close; but that’s the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash.
— Douglas MacArthur
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The speaker says the outcome was narrow, and generalizes that war works this way: victory or defeat, survival or death, can be separated by a margin as thin as an eyelash. The line emphasises how precarious and arbitrary such results are. Its attribution is uncertain.
Context reviewed