Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.

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

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.

Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle.

Wars are begun by frightened men.

It's not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons.

The KGB still killed people, the KGB would not execute its last prisoner until the final days of its existence in 1991, but by the eighties a termination required paperwork and signatures and a post-action review.