That soldiers do terrible things during wartime should not surprise us.

Read as much as you can. Write only when you feel the inner need to do so. And don’t ever rush into print.

In my experience, whatever happens clings to us like barnacles on the hull of a ship, slowing us slightly, both uglifying and giving us texture. You can scrape all you want, you can, if you have money, hire someone else to scrape, but the barnacles will come back or at least leave a blemish on the steel.

In life you get one take, and it's perfect. It's strange, afterwards you might think I shouldn't have reacted that way, but that's the way you reacted. That's your take; that's all you get.

inside us, a flower taken whole, a field built inside.

There is a physics to the world, which non-fiction has a contract to stand in awe of, otherwise it becomes completely self-centered and ego-driven, which is the death of a memoir.

I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work of art.