Up Country Quotes

“Nostalgia is basically the ability to forget the things that sucked.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“Most guys arrived here normal, and they were shocked and sickened by the behavior of the guys who'd been here a while. Then within a few weeks, they'd stop being shocked, and within a few months a lot of them joined the club of the crazies. And most of them, I think, went home and became normal again, though some didn't. But I never once saw anyone here who had gone around the bend ever return to normal while they were still here. It only got worse because in this environment they'd lost any sense of. . . humanity. Or you could be nice and say they'd become desensitized. It was actually more frightening than sickening. A guy who'd sliced off the ear of a VC he'd killed that morning would be joking with the village kids and the old Mama-sans that afternoon and handing out candy. I mean, they weren't evil or psychotic, we were normal, which is was really scared the hell out of me.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“Do the times make the generation, or does the generation make the times?”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“They were all good looking, wore turtleneck sweaters and tweeds and were about as Protestant as they come; old line Yankees from West Waspshire.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“remembered the men, who were really boys, grown too old before they’d finished their boyhoods, and who had died too young, before any of their dreams could come true.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“Why do I piss people off? What is wrong with me?”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“California.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“I stared at Paul Brenner’s name, followed by the date of 11 Jan 68.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“You can always tell a police state, or a country at war, by how government vehicles move”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“By whatever means are available.”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country

“Mr. Stanley if you had stayed for your entire time in Hue at the mini-motel where they do not ask for passports or visas.” “Right. We should have done that. Anything else?” “Yes. How does your lady friend,”
― Nelson DeMille, Up Country