Quotes from Phil Klay

Sometimes macho language is to mask things people are not ready to deal with.

People lie to themselves all the time about what they've been through and what it means - I'm no exception. But you write those lies down - lies that really matter to you and that are really painful to let go of because they've become a part of who you are - and they don't work.

Writing 'Redeployment' shook me in ways I never expected.

There's something odd about working 24/7, being consumed with everything that's happening in Iraq, and then coming back to the country that ordered you over there only to realize that a lot of Americans are not really paying attention.

Fiction is the best way I know how to think something through.

Responsibility and accountability is a big part of being in the military.

Bombs do very, very bad things to human bodies. It's incredibly shocking to see.

Pity addresses the perceived suffering, not the whole individual.

I ended up going to Dartmouth, and I did Marine Officer Candidate School during my junior summer.

It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.

Resilience is, of course, necessary for a warrior. But a lack of empathy isn't.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen's wars as they are the veterans' wars. If we don't assume that civilians have just as much ownership and the moral responsibilities that we have as a nation when we embark on something like that, then we're in a very bad situation.

I've been asked what differentiates war literature as a category, and I don't think there is anything.

I suppose it is the lot of soldiers and Marines to be objectified according to the politics of the day and the mood of the American people about their war.

When I was in Marine training I memorised 'The Waste Land,' which was a significant experience in terms of really breaking apart language and thinking about how the different voices in that poem function.

Political novels are full of pitfalls, particularly for a novelist with strong political leanings.

I never thought anyone would pity me because of my time in the Marine Corps.

War is complicated and intense, and it takes time and thoughts to understand what it was.

In the Marine Corps, you meet this really broad segment of the country; you're working with people from all kinds of backgrounds. And it exposes you to the American military, particularly the American military at war.

For me, leaving the Marine Corps was more disorienting than returning home.

When I first came back from Iraq, I of course found myself thinking a lot about it. Not just my experiences, but those of people I talked to, friends, and colleagues.

One thing I've always liked about the military is there's a certain amount of pragmatism.

I have, for a very long time, been a huge admirer of Marilynne Robinson, whose work I just love.

There's a wide spectrum between a Navy SEAL hero-killer and a traumatized victim, but those are the archetypes - hashed and rehashed in the media, in popular culture, in the minds of people with a lot of preconceived notions but not much else.