The time for debilitating fear is before and after the mission.

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

There's no room for hate and violence in this world. We must learn to be more kind, compassionate, empathetic, and sympathetic to humanity.

I would love a sandwich, ' said Tybalt, with enough gravity to make it sound like a formal proclamation. Resolved: that we will have ham and cheese sandwiches.

If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you.

Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning, truth and beauty can't.

I dont make it a practice to respond to reports in the social media but occasionally it is necessary.

Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other everything to gain.

Dogs do tricks. Cats play tricks.

Idiotic reply, June. Why don't you punch him in the face while you're at it. I turn even more flustered when I remember that I have actually pistol-whipped him in the face before. Romantic

I completely admire my mother for raising a child with cerebral palsy at home.

You can accomplish so much with a strong will. Just do your best, no matter what. Don't let negative thoughts creep in. Don't talk yourself out of anything.