I received my draft notice right after graduation from college and had three months before going into the Army in September to think about it.

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.

I always find that there is a real communication between voice and violin.

I don't want to be the cliche American Idol dude. I want to be different, you know - that's the whole goal, me and music. It's about being yourself and being unique.

I started writting songs when I was really little because there were things I could say through songs that I couldn't verbalize any other way. Writting was something I had to do.

I know that the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully.

The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done - challenging us to a realization of a new humanity.

When it comes to idiots, America's got more than its fair share. If idiots were energy, it would be a source that would never run out.

Establish who you are, and don't let anybody dress you up or change the way you are, and stay true to yourself.

Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done.

The object of this competition is not to be mean to the losers but to find a winner. The process makes you mean because you get frustrated.

Any press is good press.