Russell Phillips > Russell's Quotes

“I have lived now for over a century, yet I can still say with complete confidence that no one can claim to have plumbed the depths of human misery who has not shared the fore-ends of a submarine with a camel.”
― John Biggins, A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire

“In fact the bare adjective "bad" hardly scratches the surface of the man's awesome incapacity.”
― John Biggins, The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time While Not Quite Managing to Avert the First World War

“It is a curiously moving experience, to hear 350 sailors uttering the words "Oh shit!" in eleven different languages.”
― John Biggins, The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time While Not Quite Managing to Avert the First World War

“Friendship throws out deep roots in honest hearts, D'Artagnan. Believe me, it is only the evil-minded who deny friendship; they cannot understand it.”
― Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

“The one ring road around the airfield is paved, but heavily rutted and potholed. Every few days a street-sweeper makes its way around, polishing the rutted surface with brushes and water.”
― Glenn Dean, Soldier / Geek: An Army Science Advisor's Journal of the War in Afghanistan

“Troops are everywhere in their modern, digital camouflage, designed to blend in anywhere at any time. Yet at night we wear bright yellow reflective belts.”
― Glenn Dean, Soldier / Geek: An Army Science Advisor's Journal of the War in Afghanistan

“Every infantryman in the Soviet Army carries with him a small spade. When he is given the order to halt he immediately lies flat and starts to dig a hole in the ground beside him.”
― Viktor Suvorov, SPETSNAZ: The Inside Story Of The Special Soviet Special Forces

“Between memory and reality there are awkward discrepancies...”
― Eileen Chang

“In decades from now, I’m sure they’ll say we Joes were all noble, every one of us grimy but patriotic cherubs. Because we won a war. Back home they already do think it, thanks to the publicity teams, the ads, correspondents, censors. I’m not buying it. If we have to come here and fight to do away with your Hitler and the sorry mess he created, then people ought to know just how much the effort sucks all our souls. That way, maybe no one will try a war again.”
― Steve Anderson, Under False Flags

“Let’s honor a man or woman who was there, but never a war itself and those who start it.”
― Steve Anderson, Under False Flags

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
― George McGovern

“I don’t blame Germans,” Emil said. “I don’t even blame Nazis. I blame people who want to live at the expense of others.”
― Steve Anderson, Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades