I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme.

Death is never easy when you know the people doing the dying.

I'm trusting in the Lord and a good lawyer.

Without any intended hubris, I've lead a pretty exciting life. What I've tried to do in Mission Compromised is draw on those experiences to create a sense of excitement and realism within the story

An easy life is rarely meaningful and a meaningful life rarely easy.

We lie by not telling you things...We don't lie by telling you things that aren't true.

The terrorists that we are up against today do not rely upon cell phones and SAT phones and emails. They rely on couriers. You cannot intercept what a courier is telling somebody

I would not trade you a billion dollars for the kids I led to combat in Vietnam or in fact any of the Marines that I served with for a quarter of a century.

I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.

A Commander-in-Chief needs to do two things. One - tell us who the enemy is. And two - say we are fighting to win.

I haven't, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America, ever violated an order - not one.

The best use of a journal is to print the largest practical amount of important truth - truth which tends to make mankind wiser and thus happier.

It will not be possible to solve the current crisis with euro bonds.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value

My grandmother, she's been the positive portion of my life the entire time. She raised us Baptist, and when I got old enough to say I didn't want to go to church, she didn't force me. She was cool.

The way is an ill neighbour.

Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time.

Our responsibility is one of decision, for to govern is to choose.

The greatest source of discouragement is the conviction that one is unable to do something

If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to.

Though like the wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to Thee.