[Robert] Capa: He was a good friend and a great and very brave photographer. It is bad luck for everybody that the percentages caught up with him. It is especially bad for Capa. (On Capa's death in Vietnam, May, 27, 1954)

It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea.

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.

No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.

There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only one you.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.