“If spectacle is lacking in everyday life, it may be because we have forgotten where and how to look.”

“For Achilles, the death of Patroclus pushed him into a fury, but it was not only grief that drove him. It was also a sense of shame and guilt because he had not been there to protect his friend. So...”

“For many people, that war [WWII] is called the good war because it was fought against a regime guilty of unspeakable atrocities. But the Allies did not enter the war to save Jews from extermination...”

“The Great Stone at the center of the Somme memorial has this inscription: Their name liveth for evermore. The memorial contains 73,077 names, the names of young men who were robbed of life. Note th...”

“[W]e would do better to treat terrorists as common criminals, people who have broken the laws recognized by all civil societies. To treat them as soldiers is to increase their power, respectability...”

“We Americans pride ourselves on our freedom to speak, to say what we believe. But of what use is it to speak if only those who already agree with us listen? A first step toward the abolition of war...”

“As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betr...”

“Most fundamentally, the U.S. military isand will continue to bea product of our culture and our collective decisions. Whatever it is, it's what we have made it.”

“As budget cuts cripple civilian agencies and programs, they lose their ability to perform ad they once did, so we look to the military to pick up the slack. . . . This requires still higher militar...”

“The battered and pathetic thing that represented any claim to conscience I might have had turned away from me in disgust. Oddly, I couldn't blame it. I was disgusted myself. Disgusted at my weaknes...”

“The part of her that should have been disgusted was numb.”

“There had been a time in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, with a sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was m...”

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.”

“Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.”

“It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.”