Karl Marlantes

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 them cared about.

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 pay your money to the woman showing you the door. You see the dirt on the walls and your sorry image in the mirror.

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 not have the inner strength that allowed them to do such a thing without fear. There was no woman’s strength in Mellas at all.

The chanting went on, the musicians giving in to the rhythm of their own being, finding healing in touching that rhythm, and healing in chanting about death, the only real god they knew.

War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.

Over time, continual bad news will discourage any civilian population, and Americans had the lowest tolerance on the planet for bad news.

Cynicism is no more mature than naïveté. You're no more mature, just more burned.