Veteran art creates a meeting place between veterans and civilians, or simply between veterans with different experiences.

And that was my homecoming. It was fine, I guess. Getting back feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Even if it hurts, it's good.

War is too strange to be processed alone.

It's not so much the question that offends me; it's that the people asking it don't seem to respect the moral seriousness of the question.

Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters.

Fiction offered me tools that allowed me to approach a wider variety of issues than the events of my own life would.

If you're going to write about war, the ugly side is inevitable. Suffering and death are obviously part of war.

I've certainly thought a lot more about things like tyranny and patriotism and violence. I think I found some kind of clarity - definitely a thicker understanding.

Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

When we make judgements we're inevitably acting on limited knowledge, isn't it best to ask if we seek to understand, or simply let them be?

All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park: an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children.

I don't write on topics that require a lot of urgency. But in 'Stiff, ' I wanted to change people's hearts about organ donation. Whenever I get a chance, I try to talk about that.

It was the straying that found the path direct.

Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can't afford it.

Only in Christ are all things in communion. He is the point of convergence of all hearts and beings and therefore the bridge and the shortest way from each to each.

Men of the present time testify of heaven and hell, and have never seen either.

Independence, like honor, is a rocky island, without a beach.

The desire for knowledge shapes a man.