“Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy ‘savages.’ There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there.”

Decades of Saddam’s rule made what could have been a fairly rich country, due to its oil reserves, into a very poor one.

No, the best way to stop a vehicle is to shoot the driver. And that you can do with a number of weapons.

One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses.

Every person I killed I strongly believe that they were bad. When I do go face God there is going to be lots of things I will have to account for but killing any of those people is not one of them.

Despite what your momma told you, Violence does solve problems.

The media cause more problems than they do good.

In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Everyone of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.

You have to slow your heart rate, stay calm. You have to shoot in between your heartbeats.

The Navy credits me with more kills as a sniper than any other American service member, past or present.

You’re not just going out there, maybe sacrificing your own life. There’s also sacrifices still going on at home. You can serve in the military and have a good marriage, but you just need to be aware of it so you can take those steps to take care of it.

But real life doesn’t travel in a perfect straight line; it doesn’t necessarily have that ‘all lived happily ever after’ bit. You have to work on where you’re going.

It’s funny – sometimes the strongest individuals feel the worst when events are out of their control, and they can’t really be there for the people they love. I’ve felt it myself.

I just want to get the bad guys but if I can’t see them, I can’t shoot them.

I have a master chief that always said, punch and run.

I am a much better father and husband than I ever was a sniper.

I thought I should be stronger than was possible.

Why is it that you have more practice describing weaknesses than strengths? It’s not your fault they never went to the lengths to teach you how to value your strengths.

Empirical description involves enslavement to the object by decreeing passivity on the part of the subject.

It is not the object described that matters, but the light that falls on it.

I’m incapable of describing the feeling with which I left. I wouldn’t want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I’d never experienced it.

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.

I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.

Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?

This is an amazing thought: a God who is indescribable.