Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

We cannot fail to win unless we fail to try.

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it.

There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit's personnel: their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps' secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos.

The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.

What do I know about sex? I’m a married man.

You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.