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Karl Marlantes Quotes


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Quotes by Karl Marlantes

Showing 1-10 of 19 Quotes by Karl Marlantes

We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with, because we're unique to start with. But we then go through some sort of boot camp from the age of zero to about 18 where we learn everything we can about how not to be unique.

~Karl Marlantes

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When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans, or the family. It's just starting.

~Karl Marlantes

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War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.

~Karl Marlantes

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I mean, if you're proud of what you've done when you've served in the military, well then we call that bragging. And if you are unhappy about what happened, we call that complaining. And so what are you going to do?

~Karl Marlantes

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The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.

~Karl Marlantes

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I mean... if you're raised as a decent human being, killing somebody is against every moral thing you've ever been taught. And so, generally, in combat it's 'krauts,' the 'gooks,' the 'yanks' - whatever you want to do to try and make it so that it's not a human being.

~Karl Marlantes

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And I think that it's - the military has actually made improvements, so people are considering post-traumatic stress disorder as, at the least, a possible psychological problem. You know, when I was in Vietnam, it was just considered malingering. And we're making progress.

~Karl Marlantes

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I grew up in Oregon, where as a teenager I worked with my grandfather Axel on his i shing boat at the mouth of the Columbia River.

~Karl Marlantes

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In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect. This is pretty nice. It's also a psychological trap that can stop one's growth and allow one to get away with just plain bad behavior.

~Karl Marlantes

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I knew many Marines had done brave deeds that no one saw and for which they got no medals at all. I was having a very hard time carrying those medals and didn't have the insight or maturity to know what to do with my combination of guilt and pride.

~Karl Marlantes

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Author

Born: December 24th, 1944

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