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.

Surviving is much more painful than death.

Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, "Oh, you can't do that..."

Keep at it! The one talent that's indispensable to a writer is persistence. You must write the book, else there is no book. It will not finish itself. Do not try to commit art. Just tell the damned story.

That's the ultimate pornography. There's nothing more pornographic than glorifying war.

"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.

Learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it and keep doing it until you get it right.