Quotes About Understanding

I've been insane from a very early age.

Being gay, you're kind of forced to ask, I suppose, very existential questions from a very, very early age. Your identity becomes so important to you because you're trying to understand it, and, I think, from the age of, like, 9, you're being forced to ask questions... that other kids maybe don't have to ask.

It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because that's what real life should be about as well.

I learned tolerance at a very early age.

I suppose for a very long time I've been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

I think women have not been terribly kind to other women for a very long time.

I'm just a vessel of information.

Humility has to do with trying to be a vessel of purposes you're content to understand as not your own.

I get vested in my guys. I want to know who their family members are, I want to know their interests, I want to know what makes them tick. I want them to also know I care about the other side of them, their personal character and growth as men, because I think we all sharpen each other that way.

When a kid can understand that a word can mean two things, there's some real thinking going on. They have a vested interest in finding out what a word means, because it's the punch line to a joke.

It's easier to get people to talk to you if you're a vet and you want to interview a vet about war. Sometimes they open up a little bit easier.

It's one thing to talk to a vet about something, but when you're talking to a fellow rookie going through the same struggles you are, you kind of understand it - and you grow together like that.

The civilian wants to respect what the veteran has gone through. The veteran wants to protect memories that are painful and sacred to him from outside judgment.

The best compliment we ever got about the show was from a Korean veteran who was unable to talk about his war experience with his wife until 'M*A*S*H.' While watching the show, he was able to lean over to his wife and say, 'See, honey, that's the way it was.'

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans - because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

As veterans we should be smarter about how we talk about things.

There's been nobody who stays in more communication and listens to veterans more than I do.

We have to make sure the Hell the veterans come home from is not the Hell they come back to.

When our veterans walk into any VA facility, they converse with men and women who speak the unique language of military service.

Veterans' issues have always spoken to me.

Our family lives military and veterans issues in a way few others do.

For some strange reason a lot of people in my age demographic don't want to listen to veterans of this sport.

We think that fear must be played out in fight, with military intervention, or in flight, via isolationism - but we are not hunted game, and those are not the only options. There is also the possibility of acceptance, with its corollary of understanding and its ultimate manifestation in embracing.

If you really want to make a difference you don't do it via Tweet, via Facebook, via Instagram - you get down, you understand what the facts are and then you offer a path forward.