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" I started with things that I was troubled by or confused by or interested in, and then I wrote stories to try to puzzle my way through it. But the question is not how to represent war, because it's an abstract thing that's felt differently for all the characters. "

Phil Klay

Try

Way

War

Related Quotes:

" You come back from war, and you have a certain authority to talk about war. "

" People have a very political way of looking at war, and that's understandable. "

" 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. "

" War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war. "

" I literally went straight to New York City from Iraq, which was bizarre and complicated. I was walking down Madison Avenue, and it was spring, and people were smartly dressed, and it was so strange because there was no sense that we were at war. It was something to grapple with. "

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

" I saw so many radically different versions of Iraq. It would have been difficult for me to come back and think, 'This is the Iraq experience.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Treating war as farce is one way soldiers deal with it. "

" The First Battle of Fallujah was called off in part because of the intensity of non-U.S. media coverage of civilian casualties from outlets like Al Jazeera. "

Phil Klay

Off

Media

" You're not supposed to risk your life just for the physical safety of American citizens - you're supposed to risk your life for American ideals as well. "

" We're told that when we remember, the same parts of our brain light up as when we experienced the event we're remembering. Your brain lives through it again. "

Phil Klay

Brain

Remembering

" 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. "

" I was studying with Peter Carey, Colum McCann; but also, my fellow students were really critical readers for me. "

Phil Klay

Critical

Studying

" It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books. "

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

Phil Klay

Going

Summer

" One of the things that's difficult for people to understand is when you join the military, you don't sign up as an endorsement of any particular policy of the moment. "

" Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean? "

" With fiction, you can take something that bothers you, or that you don't have in clear focus, and you can put it under as much stress as you want. Really get underneath the skin. With nonfiction, you're restricted to what happened. "

" Prayer in a combat zone serves exactly the same purpose as it does in peacetime. In war, the stakes are life and death, true; but if you believe in God and in the notion of a human soul, then we are always making decisions of tremendous significance. "

" I have friends with post-traumatic stress - friends with post-traumatic stress who are, you know, highly successful, capable people. "

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

" I think that just because you've been through an experience doesn't make you the ultimate arbiter of what it means. We figure things out; we work things out through the help of other people who can engage with us but also be intelligently critical. "

" 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. "

" We have a tendency to think of war as this quasi-mystical thing, and that interpretation flattens the experience - by using different perspectives, I wanted to open a place for readers to compare and contrast, to make judgments, to engage. "

" It's a professional military. You sign up and agree to allow your countrymen to use your life as they see fit for the next four years. And I think we all should have a greater role in ensuring that we use those lives wisely. "

Phil Klay

You

See

" If you're going to write about war, the ugly side is inevitable. Suffering and death are obviously part of war. "

" If we fetishize trauma as incommunicable, then survivors are trapped - unable to feel truly known by their nonmilitary friends and family. "

" 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. "