“Today the word "hero" has been diminished. confused with "celebrity." But in my father's generation the word meant something.
celebrities seek fame. They take actions to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content. Heroes are heroes because they have risked something to help others. Their actions involve courage. Often, those heroes have been indifferent to the public's attention. But at least, the hero could understand the focus of the emotion.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“When I asked him, fifty-three years after the event, "Mr. Lucas, why did you jump on those grenades?" he did not hesitate with his answer: "To save my buddies.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“The battle of Iwo Jima would quickly turn into a primitive contest of gladiators: Japanese gladiators fighting from caves and tunnels like the catacombs of the Colosseum, and American gladiators aboveground, exposed on all sides, using liquid gasoline to burn their opponents out of their lethal hiding places.
All of this on an island five and a half miles long and two miles wide. An area smaller than Doc Bradley's hometown of Antigo, but bearing ten times the humanity. A car driving sixty miles an hour could cover its length in five and a half minutes. For the slogging, dying Marines, it would take more than a month.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“This giant fleet of American warships – a modern armada – churns across the ocean day and night for a journey of four thousand miles. It moves with the inevitability of a railroad schedule. It stops for nothing, it deviates for nothing. The United States, having been surprised at Pearl Harbor and then raked in battle after battle by the onrushing forces of imperial Japan, has finally stabilized and gathered its strength. Now the American giant is fully awake and cold-eyed. It is stalking an ocean, rounding the curve of the earth, to crush its tormentor.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“That is how we always keep our beloved dead alive, isn’t it? By telling stories about them; true stories.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Like a moth, Rene was attracted to the flame of fame”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Roughly fifty percent of procedure in a Marine basic-training program is about disconnecting the young American boy from his concept of himself as a unique individual, a lone operator.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Later he would declare that “not getting hit was like running through rain and not getting wet.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Iwo Jima had become the number-one front-page story in newspapers across the country. And it had become the most heavily covered, written-about battle in World War II.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Celebrities seek fame. They take actions to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Late in his life, Rene complained of living a life of a celebrity one minute and a “John Doe” the next.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flags of Our Fathers
James D. Bradley
Born place: in Wisconsin, The United States
Born date January 1, 1954
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“Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter.”
― George Carlin, quote from Last Words
“Tear It Down"
We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body.”
― Jack Gilbert, quote from The Great Fires
“It's not that girls are delusional, per se. It's just that they have this subtle ability to warp actual circumstances into something different.”
― Rebecca Serle, quote from When You Were Mine
“You do not comprehend. It is not the victim who concerns me so much. It is the effect on the character of the slayer."
"What about war?"
"In war you do not exercise the right of private judgement. That is what is so dangerous. Once a man is imbued with the idea that he knows who ought to be allowed to live and who ought not - then he is halfway to becoming the most dangerous killer there is - the arrogant killer who kills not for profit - but for an idea. He has usurped the functions of le bon Dieu.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Cards on the Table
“Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again.”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
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Summer KnightBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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