“If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.”
“You know what we've lost, William? We've lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We're so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.”
“My war is not as simple as yours was, Father. People seem to question their obligation to serve on other than their own terms. But enough of that. I fight because we have always fought. It doesn't matter who.”
“You know what we’ve lost, William? We’ve lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We’re so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.”
“He sensed that it was all here, everything, and there was none of it there. All of life's compelling throbs, condensed and honed each time a bullet flew: the pain, the brother-love, the sacrifice. Nobility discovered by those who'd never even contemplated sacrifice, never felt an emotion worth their own blood on someone else's altar.”
“I just look at you and say, ‘that used to be me. But it isn't anymore.”
“Well, what kind of hello is that? Besides. You wouldn't want me as a supply officer, Bagger. I'd fuck it up so bad you'd starve.”
“The tender June day persisted, refusing to die. Each pulse of light was fainter and more exquisite than the last, as if bidding farewell to the earth, full of love and regret.”
“Never regret your past. Rather,
embrace it as the teacher that it is.”
“She fell in love with him, and he with her; that’s a spell if you like.”
“A cynic by experience, a romantic by inclination and now a hero by necessity.”
“But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way I can take this personally.”
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