Writing was always an aspiration, but I'd kept it a secret even from myself.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

I can't envision an honest war novel that left war in a positive light.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way.

All choices are illusions, or if they are not illusions their strength is illusory, for one choice must contend with the choices of all the other men and women deciding anything in that moment.

As human beings, we have the blessing and the curse that we're able to adapt to almost anything. No matter how extreme the circumstances you're in, they become normal.

Freedom is not the same as lack of accountability.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centre.

One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.

Experience to a politician is like experience to a prostitute - not much to recommend them.

We all have good instincts unless they're beaten out of us or shamed out of us in childhood.

I always ask at once, 'Do you drink?' and if she says 'No,' I bow politely and say I am sorry but I fear she will not suit. All good cooks drink.

The concept, the label, is perpetually hiding from us all the nature of the real.

Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening.

The first mark of valor is defence.

Even before the concentration camps, I felt it was my duty to my ancestors to preserve a world that might cease to exist.

I've had just about everything punched. I've had things grabbed that just shouldn't be grapped.

The instant trivial as it is is all we have unless-unless things the imagination feeds upon, the scent of the rose, startle us anew.