She didn't strike me as a "crossword in ink" kind of girl

The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be called nekulturny-uncultured-yet the same men who sat in the gilt boxes at the Moscow State Opera weeping at the end of a performance of Boris Gudunov could immediately turn around and order the execution or imprisonment of a hundred men without blinking. A strange people, made more strange by their political philosophy.

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.

I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

She didn't strike me as a "crossword in ink" kind of girl

There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up.

Even true believers had consciences, Too bad.