Kevin Powers Quotes

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

I can't envision an honest war novel that left war in a positive light.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way.

All choices are illusions, or if they are not illusions their strength is illusory, for one choice must contend with the choices of all the other men and women deciding anything in that moment.

As human beings, we have the blessing and the curse that we're able to adapt to almost anything. No matter how extreme the circumstances you're in, they become normal.

Freedom is not the same as lack of accountability.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

Poetry and prose are of equal importance to me as a reader, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in my own writing.

The world makes liars of us all.

I knew that at least a few of the stars I saw were probably gone already, collapsed into nothing. I felt like I was looking at a lie. But I didn't mind. The world makes liars of us all.

The details of the world in which we live are always secondary to the fact that we must live in them.

Michael Koryta's THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is an absolutely thrilling read. I read most of it with my breath held, occasionally exhaling to ask myself, 'What will happen next?' I highly recommend it.

I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable.

I've been writing poems and stories since I was about 13.

One of the things my service in Iraq did give me was this freedom from fear of failure or any kind of expectations that I had to take a standard path.

The war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on.

In a lot of ways, the task at hand for any poem is to approach something that defies exactness or definition with a kind of exactness or precision.

I'm always most interested in writing about things that I don't understand.

All pain is the same. Only the details are different.

I understand that it's incredibly difficult to watch what's happening on the news every day and not become inured to it. I've fallen victim to that myself, wanting to look away.

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.

Writing was always an aspiration, but I'd kept it a secret even from myself.

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centre.

We were not destined to survive. The fact is, we were not destined at all. The war would take what it could get.