Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.

If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.

My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.

What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?

But I do like churches. The way it feels inside. It feels good when you just sit there, like you're in a forest and everything's really quiet, expect there's still this sound you can't hear.

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.