An Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.

Actors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself.

The coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.

The colors of the underwater rock [are] as pale and delicate as those in the wardrobe of an 18th-century marchioness.

But there are no loners. No man lives in a void. His every act is conditioned by his time and his society.

I 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.

One 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.