#war

you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#war #life

War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#survival #war #life

Even without wars, life is dangerous. ↗

— Anne Sexton

#even #life #wars #without

A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is. ↗

— Erich Maria Remarque

#war #life

On my resume I have an awards category. It has one entry. It is the highlight of my life. I’m not trying to impress you or make you overly jealous. I’m merely documenting. OK, so maybe I am gloating a bit. Here it is, exactly as it appears on my resume. “Awards: I won third place in the 100-yard dash in the fourth grade. I still carry around my green ribbon with me wherever I go. The ribbon is available for authenticity inspection upon request, and my fourth grade PE coach’s phone number can also be provided to corroborate the validity of my claim.”
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#award #awards #category #claim #coach

After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do teh best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me. ↗

— Michael J. Fox

#inspirational-life #life #moving-forward #strength #struggle

I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#vietnam #war #life

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. ↗

— Chris Hedges

#purpose #war #life

Destiny was a machine built over time, each choice that you made in life adding another gear, another conveyor belt, another assemblyman. Where you ended up was the product that was spit out at the end—and there was no going back for a redo. You couldn‟t take a peek at what you‟d manufactured and decide, Oh, wait, I wanted to make sewing machines instead of machine guns; let me go back to the beginning and start again. One shot. That was all you got. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#crave #fallen #ward #life

For now. But if I ever decide you're useless, you are a dead man." To be killed by you is to be desired more than a life excluded from your service." Bravo." Her Imperial Viciousness laughed with genuine feeling. "Bra-vo! ↗

— Frank Beddor

#dead #glass #imperial #looking #man