Karl Marlantes Quotes
Matterhorn is my metaphor of the Vietnam War - we built it, we abandoned it, we assaulted it, we lost, and then we abandoned it again.
I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.
War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.
When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans, or the family. It's just starting.
It was all absurd, without reason or meaning. People who didn't know each other were going to kill each other over a hill none of them cared about
It won't hurt you. It's just to kill plants. It's called Agent Orange...and it won't bother humans.
The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.
Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death.
Once we recognize our shadow's existence we must resist the enticing step of going with its flow.
Quitting is unthinkable and pain is just weakness leaving the body
How could you get mad at someone who neither needed to attack nor was at all worried about being able to defend? It was like getting mad at Switzerland.
Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing.
This nation should be less worried about putting the Vietnam syndrome behind us than restarting the World War II victory syndrome that resulted in the Vietnam syndrome in the first place.
'Matterhorn' is my metaphor of the Vietnam War - we built it, we abandoned it, we assaulted it, we lost, and then we abandoned it again.
War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up some failure on the part of the adults.
The chanting went on, the musicians giving in to the rhythm of their own being, finding healing in touching that rhythm, and healing in chanting about death, the only real god they knew.