He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be. The distinction was important.

But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget.

With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head.

They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

[Y]ou can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.

Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads?

It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.

Generally, crises were Mom's domain. Dad's job was to listen, nod, act curmudgeonly, and offer to pay for things.

Obedience is less painful than regret.

The moon makes love to the ocean and in this holy conception it gives birth to a little tide.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. ...live in the question.

After the Beatles and Dylan, there's this assumption that you are a singer-songwriter, or that if someone else is writing your rhymes, you're a fake rapper.

All the gifts and talents we have are from God, but they are also for God...for His glory and for His pleasure. Don't waste them, make great use of them and make Him proud.

There's so much that we're doing wrong today. And studies show we're one of three countries that doesn't invest more in disadvantaged communities.

Eric Holder sees everything through the prism of race. He keeps that mustache because shaving cream is white.

I think we are in a non-essentialist bubble—everything seems important—so of course nothing is.

There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.