25 Quotes by Miles Watson

Raus did not look up at the faces. An officer learned not to look at the faces. It was easier if you thought of them as bodies, as tools, means to an end. But just what the end was Raus could no longer say.

The bigger a man’s balls are out here, Lieutenant, the more likely they are to get shot off.

Halleck came from people who regarded a slight change of facial expression as adequate to convey the pain of a severed limb.

New York, I thought, was a city defined by its flaws. In every possible way, its virtues were overwhelmed by its vices, as Jekyll was by Hyde. Yet it was these very vices that gave the city its character - like tar in an oak barrel lending its flavor to Scotch.

A good platoon sergeant, in the lieutenant’s mind, ought act like Kato on 'The Green Hornet' and not a disapproving uncle with a taste for the strap.

Anne held out her arms. I don't want to say I flew into them. I wasn't in condition for flying. Or running. Or even dignified limping. Fell towards the center of gravity in my own personal universe. And if our lips met on the way down, was that any fault of mine?

Pain could be controlled. Its debts could be deferred. But there were other debts that could not be deferred. Debts of honor. Debts of love.

Kraut was a stand-up guy in the old tradition, in a strange way reminiscent of my father in his steadfast refusal to abandon a position once he had taken it. It was a quality I lacked, and so admired in others when they weren't using it to beat me to the canvas or break my heart.

Breese was one of those people who thought of civilization as sitting atop the earth like a man on a throne, and not like a weed that had thrust itself up through a crack in the sidewalk.