Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.

With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head.

They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

[Y]ou can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.

Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads?

It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.

4 levels of Education

Our ultimate destination is mental peace.

The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time.

You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.

Treat everyone the same until you find out they're an idiot.

In much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state.

I thought about it for awhile, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn't ruin my birthday by secretly thinking about it too hard

I grew up in a big ol' Latin family, so that's all the music we used to play - salsa music. We'd always dance and have fun. You know how families get down, man! We just had fun with it.

There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven; there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the conscience.

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.