Vietnam Quotes

Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail. Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets.

Vietnam remains an underdeveloped economy with a high poverty incidence, ... party, people and army will continue to stand united and ... turn Vietnam into a developed country in the coming decades.

By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. How in the heck could they?

I get very sad when I think about Vietnam where there seems to be no choice but violence. This violence goes on for centuries perpetuating itself.

It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it.

A lot of vets like 'Good Morning Vietnam' - I get great letters from guys.

Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam.

But to a Vietnamese peasant whose home means a lifetime of back-breaking labor, it will take more than presidential promises to convince him that we are on his side.

'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.

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.

Zachary smiles, and I wonder if he's felling different. Because standing out here waist deep in Gossimer Lake, next to my best friend, I'm feeling different-light and good and maybe even holy.

We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.

for years now there had been no country here but the war.

Maybe the Americans should have brought baseballs instead of bombs.

If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.

I hated him for making me stop hating him

They say in death our war is over. I don't believe that.

Truth has a resonance to it that fills the cracks where falsehoods lie.

My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger" - Billy Connolly

The Delta agent saw my itinerary and said, 'You’re flying to Jakarta via Atlanta, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur? You must have really pissed off your travel agent.

Hell had been his Vietnam. It had stamped its mark on him for all eternity, and no amount of denial or self-imposed ignorance was going to change it. Ever.

I want to introduce my readers to people they may never have met, take them places they may never have visited, and present them with situations they may never have encountered.

He [Harry Bosch] defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company

He was telling war stories. The funny, innocuous ones that made everyone forget that war could leave you without fingers, or legs, or a soul.

Stories can save us.

Stories are for joining the past to the future.

What stories can do, I guess, is make things present.

Know what an optimist is, Major? A pessimist without much experience.

Dare I ask Mao and his Communist Party?I fear my throat will be cut into two pieces.In the name of revolution, for thought crimes, Such questions can turn me to ashes.

A nation forgetting its own laughter is in a sad state of affairs

The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave.

And it was darkSo dark at nightAnd we held on to each otherLike brother to brotherWe promised our mothers we'd writeAnd we would all go down together

The only thing worse than losing hope is to be the reason someone else loses hope.

On Christmas morning, Rebecca lost her moral virginity, her sense of humor - and her two best friends. But, other than that, it was a hell of a holiday.

Back on the block they probably call Big Al "Fat Albert" but here in the Nam we don't insult our friends.

To where? We don't know. To do what? We don't know either. No one tells us anything. We just follow orders.

Don't throw away luck on little stuff. Save it up.

My dad once told me that his biggest challenge after returning from Vietnam had been coming to terms with his own callousness. He’d made a deal with the war and traded his humanity for a ticket home.

You have left too much of yourself in this land for it not to be yours. I, too, will always be yours, for you have left too much of yourself with me for it to be otherwise.

Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move.

I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.