There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force

Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

A civilised man is someone who has discovered something more satisfying than combat.

I can't visualize the situation in which we nuke ourselves into extinction.

Some people are more terrorist than others

We saw the children and the women with their babies and then I heard the poouff — the flame had broken through the thatched roof and there was a yellow- brown smoke column going up into the air. It didn't hit me all that much then, but when I think of it now — I slaughtered those people. I murdered them.

I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.