“Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I’ve done. I find it strange, but I also feel it’s my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.”

I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.

I really don’t care what people think of me.

War is hell. Hollywood fantasizes about it and makes it look good; war sucks.

There’s no reason someone who has fought for their country should be homeless or jobless.

I’m just trying to be the me that I am and not all of this other crap. I just want to be the family man, and if somehow I can make the money to get my ranch and get the hell away from everybody else, that would be awesome.

I really don’t care what people think of me. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my friends. Yes, I have been trained to be a little more aggressive if I need to be, but I don’t go around thumping people.

Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq.

Great way to fight a war – be prepared to defend yourself for winning.

The rules are drawn up by lawyers who are trying to protect the admirals and generals from the politicians; they’re not written by people who are worried about the guys on the ground getting shot.

But in that backroom or whatever it is when God confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.

I don’t know if I’m the best of the best. But I did know that if I quit, I wouldn’t be.

In the end, my story, in Iraq and afterward, is about more than just killing people or even fighting for my country. It’s about being a man. And it’s about love as well as hate.

Maybe war isn’t really fun, but I certainly was enjoying it.

Just because war is hell doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun.

It’s not a problem taking out someone who wants your people dead. That’s not a problem at all.

MY REGRETS ARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE I COULDN’T SAVE—Marines, soldiers, my buddies. I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

I thought I’d begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.

Impossible is the word for fools in my dictionary.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.

Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way – through the power of words – to change the world.