. . . to contemplate nuclear war is to entertain the concept of the end of immortality, not just the idea of death. We need to feel that we leave a part of ourselves behind when we die—our children, a great work, books, buildings, paintings—or that we live on in the spiritual or organic life cycle. Nuclear war obliterates these possibilities.
[The above was quoted in Ch. 5 of James Merrill's Apocalypse by Timothy Materer; here is the citation given in that book's endnote: Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (New York: William Morrow, 1984) 14.]