Talk about impersonating an identity, about locking into a role, about irony; I went to cover the war and the war covered me; an old story, unless of course you've never heard it.

How many times did someone have to run in front of a machine gun before it became an act of cowardice?

All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.

What is the difference between the Marine Corps and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult leadership.

Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods.

If war was hell and only hell and there were no other colors in the palate I don't think people would continue to make war.

You can still see the shadow from when the Zeppelin floated over America; it took like Islam in the desert . . .

Every time I had a vision of myself lying dead somewhere, it was up there, in the Highlands.

Maybe nothing's so unfunny as an omen read wrong.

We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.

for years now there had been no country here but the war.

A rock that perseveres under heat and pressure soon becomes a diamond.

The reader who fails to ponder, or at least mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster.

Even if most days can’t be half as good as today, it’s days like this that make it all worth it.

If I had a prayer, it would be this: "God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen."

For most of my life, I deliberately led a private life in the public eye.

The close-up says everything.

Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least once

I have my own strength.

Voyaging great distances -- through forests, from island to island, across plains and into the mountains -- is all about finding ourselves.

Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.