“Its a powerful moment, when you discover a vocabulary exists for something youd thought incommunicably unique. Personally, I felt it reading Joseph Conrads Lord Jim. I have friends whove found them...”

“I've worked hard to remember it...The problem is I'm not sure what's real memory and what's my brain filling in details, like a guy whose heart stops and he thinks he sees a bright light. Except I'...”

“And that was my homecoming. It was fine, I guess. Getting back feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Even if it hurts, it's good.”

“If you're going to write about war, the ugly side is inevitable. Suffering and death are obviously part of war.”

“I don't believe in any Greatest Generation. I believe in great events. They sweep ordinary people up, expose them to extremes of human behavior and unimaginable tests of integrity and courage, and ...”

“War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives w...”

“Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.”

“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”

“Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.”

“Sometimes it's not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don't mean.”

“Dont cry and dont rage. Understand.”

“The only way to heal yourself was to understand. Understand the love or the hate or the cowardice, or the impulsiveness, the lack of will of the one who hurt you--the circumstances that twisted the...”