I wanted something that I could look back on and say, yes, you were fighting too, you burned to be alive, and whatever failure or accident of nature caused you to be killed could be explained by something other than the fact that I'd missed your giving up.

The details of the world in which we live are always secondary to the fact that we must live in them.

The war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on.

I'm always most interested in writing about things that I don't understand.

I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable.

I know that the writers I read and admire all have an influence on my work, but trying to determine to what degree any particular piece of input changes the way I think about writing seems counterproductive.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.