“The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave.”

“Once upon a time there was a war...and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.”

“There's so much goop inside of us, man," he said, "and it all just wants to get out.”

“You’ve never felt good. Your suffering protects you. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free.”

“I feel very privileged to hear how somebody used to run around stickin' people up and stealing cars, and now they're gettin' their life back together... I just love the stories. The stories of the fallen world, they excite us. That's the interesting stuff.”

“Its always been my tendency to lie to doctors, as if good health consisted only of the ability to fool them.”

“Everybody’s got a mean side. Just don’t feed it till it grows.”