All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.

The flies have conquered the flypaper.

It [the Mexican War] was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.

There are times in war when the sharpest emotion is not fear, but loneliness and littleness.

War did not make a killer of me, although for a time I killed men.

There were people who gave everything they had to the war because it was the last war and by winning it we would remove war like a thorn from the flesh of the world and there wouldn't be any more such horrible nonsense.

You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn’t of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that’s not your business.They should’ve trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies.

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.