Matterhorn is my metaphor of the Vietnam War - we built it, we abandoned it, we assaulted it, we lost, and then we abandoned it again.

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.

War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.

When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans, or the family. It's just starting.

It was all absurd, without reason or meaning. People who didn't know each other were going to kill each other over a hill none of them cared about

It won't hurt you. It's just to kill plants. It's called Agent Orange...and it won't bother humans.

The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.

Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death.

Once we recognize our shadow's existence we must resist the enticing step of going with its flow.

Quitting is unthinkable and pain is just weakness leaving the body

How could you get mad at someone who neither needed to attack nor was at all worried about being able to defend? It was like getting mad at Switzerland.

As her time in Florence drew to a close she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent.

I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment.

You think of George Washington, this man who was larger than life, and in some ways he was. But at the same time, he's just a person.

Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion.

My faith runs so very much faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say, 'God is, was and ever shall be'.

Don't wait until you are perfect to change the world.

If poles were so important we'd call it Poling instead of Skiing

The only place opportunity cannot be found is in a closed-minded person.

I'm obviously first and foremost a British filmmaker on a global scale, but when it comes to narrowing it down, I really feel like my voice is in the Midlands and outside of London.

Me, I have a science fiction writer's conviction that the damn robot is supposed to speak human, not the other way around.