War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up some failure on the part of the adults.

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

Do you know where your breakthrough begins? Your breakthrough begins where your excuses ends.

For an optimist life is beautiful, for a pessimist life is beautiful for the fool.

Lust shouts. Love whispers. Only the heart knows the difference.

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Perhaps there are just some things you leave behind when you choose a new life.

Connection to Buddhism is strand in my life.

Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.

The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.

Confidence in oneself stems from the trust one has in knowledge.

I guess that's the thing about Rome: It never changes.