All Karl Marlantes Quotes
- When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans, or the family. It's just starting. Family
- Victory in combat is like sex with a prostitute. For a moment you forget everything in the sudden physical rush, but then you have to… Combat
- We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body… Anorexic
- Cynicism is no more mature than naïveté. You're no more mature, just more burned. Burned
- War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults. Adult
- Quitting is unthinkable and pain is just weakness leaving the body Body
- It won't hurt you. It's just to kill plants. It's called Agent Orange...and it won't bother humans. Agent
- Once we recognize our shadow's existence we must resist the enticing step of going with its flow. Enticing
- This nation should be less worried about putting the Vietnam syndrome behind us than restarting the World War II victory syndrome that resulted in the… Behind
- Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death. Death
- The time for debilitating fear is before and after the mission. Debilitating
- When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down… American
- We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start… Age
- In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything… Allow
- He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had… Accepted
- It was all absurd, without reason or meaning. People who didn't know each other were going to kill each other over a hill none of… Absurd
- He lay before God as a woman opens herself to a man, with legs apart, stomach exposed, arms open. But unlike some women, he did… All
- He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was… Added
- I grew up in Oregon, where as a teenager I worked with my grandfather Axel on his i shing boat at the mouth of the… Axel
- For every veteran who goes through a divorce, a wife goes through one, too. For every veteran alone in the basement, there is a wife… Alone