Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.
William ManchesterThe colors of the underwater rock [are] as pale and delicate as those in the wardrobe of an 18th-century marchioness.
William ManchesterI try to be as ruthless as possible. I ask myself of each sentence, "Is it clear? Is it true? Does it feel good?" And if it's not, then I rewrite it.
William ManchesterHe [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime.
William ManchesterI realized that the worst thing that could happen to me was about to happen to me.
William ManchesterActors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself.
William ManchesterOne strange feeling, which I remember clearly, was a powerful link with the slain, particularly those that had fallen within the past hour or two. There was so much death around that life seemed almost indecent. Some men's uniforms were soaked with gobs of blood. The ground was sodden with it. I killed, too.
William ManchesterThey fought on with a devotion which would puzzle the generation of the 1980s. More surprising, in many instances it would have baffled the men they themselves were before Pearl Harbor. Among MacArthur's ardent infantrymen were cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk, and some civilian volunteers.
William ManchesterAn Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.
William ManchesterThe coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.
William Manchester