30 quotes
This is the song of the men who have no place, played by a man who has never had a place, and can therefore play it.
There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.
The Thin Red Line (1962)
If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost.
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Sometimes the air is awfully clear here. You can look off to sea and see the soft, warm, raggedy roof of clouds stretching on and on and on. It almost seems as if you can look right on into eternity.
To Reach Eternity (1989)
I want to make everybody in the world groan with the inevitability of sorrow.
History is always written from the viewpoints of the leaders. And increasingly, in our age, war leaders do not get shot at with any serious consistency.
WWII (1975)
I'm going to ask you something. If I do get killed, and I honestly don't see how I can help it, I want you to write that book we were thinking about when I enlisted.
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Promise me you wont never hurt nobody unless its absolute a must, unless you jist have to do it.
This place is hell. They herd you around like cattle; they order you around like dogs; they work you like horses; and they feed you like hogs.
Letter after joining the Army (1939)
It will say just about everything I have ever had to say, or will ever have to say, on the human condition of war and what it means to us, as against what we claim it means to us.
I still think its probably the most evil of all pursuits.
Don Swaim interview (1975)
I'm an American, and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much — and its big, awkward, sprawling people.
The Paris Review interview (1958)
The first note was clear and absolutely certain. There was no question or stumbling in this bugle.
I write to reach eternity.
There was no placid regimented tempo to Taps. The notes rose high in the air and hung above the quadrangle.
They stood in the darkness of the porches, listening, feeling suddenly very near the man beside them, who also was a soldier, who also must die.
As far as modern war is concerned I am a pacifist. Hell, it isn't even war anymore... It's an industry...
What a silly thing to do, he thought. What a goddam silly thing to do. You wont even be there to watch their faces.
Colour makes a difference. Gender makes a difference. Ethnicity makes a difference. Acting as if they don't will create more problems than it will solve.
Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006)
The perfect ideal would be that a man who is essentially nonviolent would be able to defend himself against any form of violence. But this is very rare in life.
The Paris Review interview (1958)