To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

The male role models I had all seemed to have been in the military. My father served in the army. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. There weren't any career soldiers in my family, but when I was young it seemed like a way of arriving at adulthood.

Writing was always an aspiration, but I'd kept it a secret even from myself.

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

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

You want to fall, that's all. You think it can't go on like that. It's as if your life is a perch on the edge of a cliff and going forward seems impossible, not for a lack of will, but a lack of space. The possibility of another day stands in defiance of the laws of physics. And you can't go back. So you want to fall, let go, give up, but you can't. And every breath you take reminds you of that fact. So it goes.

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.