The sum of a million facts is not the truth.

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.

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.

To the medieval mind the possibility of doubt did not exist.

When I wake up, I look to God.

Books may not judge you, but people do.

When we are confident, all we need is a little support.

One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write myself a role. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever roles are out there that people are willing to give to you.

If people don't like the trailer, then blame it on the people who made the trailer.

Everything is about to disappear. You've got to hurry up if you still want to see things.

For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words.

Effective management always means asking the right question.

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour.

Everyone needs an editor.