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

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

The Second World War is the largest single event in human history, fought across six of the world's seven continents and all it oceans. It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind or body and materially devastated much of the heartland of civilization.

The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need.

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.

If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman.

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.