I came to a dead stop and began major revisions. Sometimes these entailed the shredding of all existing manuscript for a fresh start - an inefficient way to write a book, though I found it exciting.

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.

Ignorance causes pain, but awareness creates happiness. Therefore, look for enlightenment every day.

The poetic side of me is Scottish.

I am so pro-swine flu... I want it. We need a plague. It's got to happen; don't be afraid. It's only going to kill the weak.

My photos tend to be confusing. I show a great many vistas.

And people in America are very practical people across the political spectrum. Very conservative women want their kids, their daughters taking birth control.

You all have to make a new Pakistan. Naya Pakistan is not a slogan - it's a belief.

The well-run group is not a battlefield of egos.

The sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution and to secure the important right of religious liberty.

The ego is a tool. You don't separate it. It's a tool for the spirit.

I always had one ear offstage, listening for the call from the bookie.