List of Karl Marlantes Quotes

Really Important Books To Me Are The Classics. I Try Very Hard To Read Them Well - You Know, Especially Once I Got Serious About Writing.

How Could You Get Mad At Someone Who Neither Needed To Attack Nor Was At All Worried About Being Able To Defend? It Was Like Getting Mad At Switzerland.

The Time For Debilitating Fear Is Before And After The Mission.

I Was Given The Ability To Create Stories And Characters. That's My Part Of The Long Chain Of Writers, Publishers, Agents, Booksellers, Librarians, And A Host Of Others Who Eventually Deliver Literature To The World. I Want To Do For Others What Eudora Welty Did For Me.

I Began Writing 'matterhorn' In 1975 And For More Than 30 Years I Kept Working On My Novel In My Spare Time, Unable To Get An Agent Or Publisher To Even Read The Manuscript.

He Lay Before God As A Woman Opens Herself To A Man, With Legs Apart, Stomach Exposed, Arms Open. But Unlike Some Women, He Did Not Have The Inner Strength That Allowed Them To Do Such A Thing Without Fear. There Was No Woman’s Strength In Mellas At All.

Cynicism Is No More Mature Than Naïveté. You're No More Mature, Just More Burned.

And I Think That It's - The Military Has Actually Made Improvements, So People Are Considering Post-traumatic Stress Disorder As, At The Least, A Possible Psychological Problem. You Know, When I Was In Vietnam, It Was Just Considered Malingering. And We're Making Progress.

This Nation Should Be Less Worried About Putting The Vietnam Syndrome Behind Us Than Restarting The World War Ii Victory Syndrome That Resulted In The Vietnam Syndrome In The First Place.

I Knew Many Marines Had Done Brave Deeds That No One Saw And For Which They Got No Medals At All. I Was Having A Very Hard Time Carrying Those Medals And Didnt Have The Insight Or Maturity To Know What To Do With My Combination Of Guilt And Pride.

When I First Got Back From The War, I Said, 'i'm Gonna Write The Great American Novel About The Vietnam War.' So I Sat Down And Wrote 1,700 Pages Of Sheer Psychotherapy Drivel. It Was First Person, And There Would Be Pages About Wet Socks And Cold Feet.

In The Military I Could Exercise The Power Of Being Automatically Respected Because Of The Medals On My Chest, Not Because I Had Done Anything Right At The Moment To Earn That Respect. This Is Pretty Nice. It's Also A Psychological Trap That Can Stop One's Growth And Allow One To Get Away With Just Plain Bad Behavior.