The war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

I can't envision an honest war novel that left war in a positive light.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way.

All choices are illusions, or if they are not illusions their strength is illusory, for one choice must contend with the choices of all the other men and women deciding anything in that moment.

As human beings, we have the blessing and the curse that we're able to adapt to almost anything. No matter how extreme the circumstances you're in, they become normal.

Freedom is not the same as lack of accountability.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centre.

Its strangeness is, we might say, due to its very reality, to the very fact that there is existence. The questioning of Being is an experience of Being in its strangeness

She who saves a single soul, saves the universe.

No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse. (Apr 2007 Gen Conf)

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Faith sees God's face in every human face.

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about.

The penetrating brilliance of swords, wielded by followers of the Way, strikes at the evil enemy, lurking deep within, their own souls and bodies.

I just look up to anyone who made music back then because you really had to be a musician. There were no samples or drum machines. Those people back in the day paved the way for people like me.

You can't be striving to please; you must be striving to get to the heart of the matter.

Say to yourself, 'I'm here on purpose, I can accomplish anything I desire, and I do it by being in harmony with the all-pervading creative force in the universe.