His [Gen. Douglas MacArthurs] twenty-two medals-thirteen of them for heroism-probably exceeded those of any other figure in American history. He seemed to seek death on battlefields.

The coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.

Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.

But there are no loners. No man lives in a void. His every act is conditioned by his time and his society.

A man's task is to find himself, and if he fails in this, it doesn't much matter what else he finds.

Actors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself.

He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] never went to church, but he read the Bible every day and regarded himself as one of the world's two great defenders of Christendom. (The other was the pope.)

An Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.

The sum of a million facts is not the truth.

I try to be as ruthless as possible. I ask myself of each sentence, "Is it clear? Is it true? Does it feel good?" And if it's not, then I rewrite it.

His [Gen. Douglas MacArthur's] own heroes were Lincoln and Washington, and in some ways he resembled them. Like them, he was slandered and misunderstood.

And he howled in agony, in a pain that would never cease as long as he lived. His tortured voice echoed in those mountains for a long long time...

Achievement without fulfillment "High achievement without fulfillment is a broken way of life."

Be careful how you judge people, most of all friends. You don't sum up a man's life in one moment.

For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

We still need to feed the public, both physically and intellectually.

The fact that grief takes so long to resolve is not a sign of inadequacy, but betokens depth of soul.

Being an actress, it's hard to publish things without people thinking everything is autobiographical.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

I want a big house with a moat and dragons and a fort to keep people out.