Anton Myrer Quotes
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If it comes to a choice between being a good soldier and a good human being -- try to be a good human being.
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Postwar America would bear no more similarity to prewar America than the Restoration Monarchy bore to Revolutionary France; what would emerge would be a vast, impersonal juggernaut of industrial cartels, a mountainous administrative bureaucracy and a prestigious military junta—and beneath these, far beneath, an emotional and highly subservient citizenry whose attitudes and actions would be created, aroused, manipulated, subverted by the roar of the mass media … it was so clear! Why couldn’t the dunderheads see it? Whoever could see it—whoever rode this wave deftly, keeping just ahead of its boiling crest—would hold the future securely in his fine right hand
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You a Catholic, Harry?” O’Neill asked. “I was. Can’t see it any more.” “You know something?” O’Neill offered after a pause. “Religion is for punks and old folks. When you’re a punk you need it because you don’t know any better and it straightens you up. And when you’re old you need it for comfort before you check out. But in between it’s no good.
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That part of his life was over; and now, lying on the dense mat of grass, he knew in one sense it always had been. But it was fun remembering …
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The romantic, spendthrift moral act is ultimately the practical one—the practical, expendient, cozy-dog move is the one that comes to grief.
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God, help me. Help me to be wise and full of courage and sound judgment. Harden my heart to the sights that I must see so soon again, grant me only the power to think clearly, boldly, resolutely, no matter how unnerving the peril. Let me not fail them.
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If…if I had his education, Kantaylis thought, surprised at the sudden intensity of the desire. If I could I’d study this business, read up on it, read all there is to be read about it.
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We stand at an immense fork in the road. One way is the path of generosity, dignity and a respect for other races and customs; the other leads most certainly to greed, suspicion, hatered and the old, bloody course of violence and waste - and now, God help us, to the very destruction of all the struggles and triumphs of the human race on this earth. My old friends and fellow townsmen: which will it be?
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They lack the ultimate audacity.” Caldwell nodded, frowning. “They possess a certain inventiveness, they plan superbly, they execute with ferocity and care. But then there comes that moment.” He glanced at his son-in-law with a quick, fond smile. “That terribly lonely moment when you must make a further decision—a huge one. One that has nothing to do with everything you’ve anticipated. With the whole future in doubt, with hopelessly inadequate information and exhausted from the strain of the battles already fought, you have to summon up all your energies and decide, quickly and clearly; and act.” He took his pipe from his mouth. “That’s where they break down.
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That's the whole challenge of life - to act with honor and hope and generosity, no whatter what you've drawn. You can't help when or what you were born, you may not be able to help how you die; but you can - and you should - try to pass the days between as a good man.
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He had chosen to spend his days in the world of men. Life was what mattered, its slow, priceless pulse, its burning fragility; his debt lay with those importunate Flanders echoes that had never really left him. The private could aspire to be a general because both general and private, at their best, recognized the dire importance of strategy, fortitude, the value of their imperiled existence; but when the machinist became the executive he left the world of tangibles and human conjugacy and entered a shadow world of credits and consols - a world that seemed to reward nothing so much as irresponsibility and boundless greed. And when the thunder rolled down upon them - as he knew it would - how would he feel, playing with paper, striving to outwit his fellows, drinking imported Scotch evenings and listening to the brittle parade of comedians on radio ...?
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Have you ever felt that, Ts’an Tsan?—a hunger for knowledge so desperate you begrudge food and sleep, you cannot wait for another dawn to get on to more and more?” Damon nodded. “Yes. Well, I had that fever. I had to know: it was more important than life.