L > L's Quotes

“I was enraptured by the brain and how it could misfire, but it wasn’t just the hardware that intrigued me, it was the software with the bugs.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“Nearly every shift, I’m asking myself, What do I do with this patient now that he has shown up here in my ER? What does he need from us right now? Unfortunately, the most common answer is: He needs a childhood transplant, he needs to start over—with loving parents this time, in a caring, nurturing environment.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“And Alison’s leaning gently on my arm, her wild bouquet of orchid-red curls tickling into my neck.”
― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman

“Still, the conscientious detective is obliged to examine the question of motive in a new light, to place it within the matrix of our present unusual circumstance.”
― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman

“lip. I have a sudden vivid picture of the earth as flat, a tray, covered in marbles, and someone is tilting it, and the marbles are rolling, cascading, from east to west.”
― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City

“still I feel a rush of gladness from being done with that bunker, that crypt. I burst up into the aboveground, drinking air and daylight like a surfacing diver. I”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“And then I roll out, just after midnight on October 3, with that one particular memory, of me and Naomi at Mr. Chow’s, threaded through my ribs like a red ribbon. It”
― Ben H. Winters, World of Trouble

“And the way out of that is mental, in your mind. Don’t buckle under to the hurt, rev up your spirit and your motivation, attack the courses. Tell yourself precisely how much you want to be here.” The”
― Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

“Obviously, I can’t write about most of that; what I saw of the overall battle was like looking at an enormous landscape painting through a tiny straw. W”
― Chris Kyle, American Sniper

“Another five grand on top of the twenty-five large from Carlisle. I vowed not to tell Kiddiot. Knowing him, he would definitely demand I buy him more cat toys. The”
― David Freed, Flat Spin

“We studied e.e. cummings: Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.”
― David Freed, Flat Spin

“At night, the creature that was the Garden peeled back its synthetic skin to show the skeleton beneath.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Butterfly Garden

“We knew there would be a fire before we blew them. There wasn’t much helping it. The wind caught the flames right away and whipped the wheat field into a frenzy, blowing toward the primeval mud-walled village a couple of acres away. There was an irrigation ditch running in between, so it probably wouldn’t spread. Probably. There was nothing we could do, so we left. I never heard if our fire spread. Trey’s certainly did. Two weeks later, when he blew a cordless-telephone/mortar combo on the side of a different road far west of Kirkuk, a spark snared the nearby wheat field, almost ripe with the winter crop. His fire didn’t burn down the village, but it did destroy the entire harvest.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“We didn’t go to that village much before the fire, but we were back regularly afterward. The town rioted, and with no Americans available to slake their thirst for reprisal, the mob attacked the only symbol of governmental control available, storming their local Iraqi Police substation, killing everyone with a uniform inside. They hung the bodies in makeshift gibbets from the roof, and formed their own militia to guard the village from the attack they knew was coming.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“Maybe we should try not to burn down any more fields,” I mentioned at dinner one night after the operation to re-seize the town. “Maybe they shouldn’t put out IEDs in the first place,” was the unanimous reply.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“War, the true mother of invention,”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“A foot in a box. Someone had put a foot in a box. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. They must have found the foot at the scene, and stuck it in the box for safekeeping. It makes sense, right? Why not put the foot in the box?”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“This is the cell division of firefights; it’s how we multiply.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“The reason I wanted to be the successful wounded vet is the same reason we often desperately want to be something new or different—because we don’t know what we are.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“And shortly thereafter, in a rare moment of lucidity, I hatched the nickname for this painful process: Touching the dragon. Touching the dragon involved touching the thing that tormented me over and over until I realized it wasn’t going to burn me.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“responded poorly. “If you think I need staples to kill everyone in this room,” I said, “then you’re the one who’s crazy.” Here’s some advice: Don’t threaten the staff at a mental ward. It’s not a good call. You might end up staying in that ward a little longer—say, for example, an extra week. You may even start getting a different kind of shot in your arm. I should have done the drawings.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“was amazing to me that all of my twenty-five years and eleven months were summed up in less than two pages of paper. That is telling. It let me know how easy it was to replace me. Like taking your finger out of a glass of water. The spot it vacates fills right back up.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“Another good trick is telling people I got shot. That’s typically when they stop checking their phones.”
― Christian D'Andrea, Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars

“You have a genuine desire to make things better for other people.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“Desmond is the poster child for Karuna, the Buddhist concept of infinite compassion.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“Making healthy choices is an awkward behavior that takes years to master. Not beating yourself up when you slow down is a good first step. Most of my patients are unmercifully hard on themselves. Happy and relaxed feels unearned and undeserved, foreign and frightening. What is more comfortable and familiar is shame, humiliation, and guilt. These are ingrained by family and society. We binge and purge on cycles of indulgence and regret. Gratify yourself, punish yourself.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“Help me learn to accept that I cannot alter the machine, and I will try my hardest to make sure that the machine does not alter me.”
― Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

“believe you never move on from a life-changing experience, but you can move forward.”
― Kevin Lacz, The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi

“The angry heat coated my skin like the moondust our boots kicked up,”
― Kevin Lacz, The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi

“My heart was pounding out of my chest as I tried to decide if I wanted to hold position or take cover. In a few short seconds, I’d gone from feeling like a zoo patron watching the animals in their cage to being the main attraction.”
― Kevin Lacz, The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi