Michael Herr Quotes

I remember saying that wars must not be glorified, but wars must be remembered.

I'm interested in wartime stories, as I think it's important to remember what the soldiers went through.

I'm glad I never went to war.

There is no French town in which the wounds inflicted on the battle-field are not bleeding.

I've grown up, luckily, with only a distant relationship to war and soldiering.

When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves.

I have come to believe there is nothing in the lives of human beings more terrifying than war and nothing more important than for those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth

I've walked on a lot of battlefields. Most of them are not haunted.

We never want to update 'Black Watch,' because it's about a moment in time, and through that moment, it manages to speak about Afghanistan and all other wars. This play is 'about' Iraq, but it's actually about every war that's ever been or will ever be.

The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.

In every man the memory of the struggles and the heroes of the past is alive. But these memories are not incompatible with the desire for peace in the future.

McCain fought in Vietnam - I think that he has enough civilian blood on his hands.

No one hates war like a soldier hates war.

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.

If you go through any culture that has had wars, go to the bomb shelters, and you'll hear some amazing stories. Yes, it's a necessary thing that we actually both distract ourselves and it's a way to bond.

My father had gone to Vietnam.

I think that you can honour the sacrifices of a common soldier without glorifying war.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

In 2003, Congress authorized the construction of a visitor center for the Vietnam Memorial to help provide information and educate the public about the memorial and the Vietnam War.

The accounting of the sacrifice is, more than anything else, the attitude toward war memorials in our time.

Well, I think everybody's a little jealous of the Vietnam Wall, even people from wars that already have good monuments. You have a monument like the Wall and nobody ever forgets your war, you can bet on that.

Love soothes wounds, while hatred and violence deepen them.

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.

The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.

The bells cease, and the power goes from me, and I descend again to the world of the living; and if in some foolish confiding moment I try to explain why I want to re-live those old days, to tear the Truth out of the past so that all men shall see plainly, perhaps someone will say to me, 'Oh, the War! A tragedy - best forgotten.'