Lawrence Wright Quotes

Majored in staying out of Vietnam.

One of the things I am most proud of is refusing to serve in the military when drafted during the Vietnam War.

If it is right to honor those who served in the cause of war, then it is equally right to honor those who served the cause of resistance to war.

The reason why many young people in the Vietnam War era were active was their lives were threatened by the draft and they were going to perhaps be forced to go overseas and fight in an immoral war.

I had a very strong feeling about the Vietnam War, and I had a strong feeling about participating in it. The military draft was in place, I was summoned for a physical exam, and I was either going to be classified as fit for military service or make my objection to it. So I made my objection to it.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.

If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose.

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

My opposition to the Vietnam War. I was the first Hollywood actor to speak out against it.

People didn't have the political guts to stand up against an American war.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

I was involved in the anti-war movement.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.

I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.

My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.

I succeeded in staying out of the military during the Vietnam War, and I would never assume the right to tell others to do a “duty” that I shirked.

Resistance to conscription [in WWI] was quite strong. By the end of the war, the ranks of noncooperators were stunningly large. Roughly 3 million eligible men never registered, in violation of the law — compared with the 24 million who did. And some 338,000 who did register either failed to obey an induction notice or deserted after they joined the ranks .... Altogether, a higher percentage of American men successfully resisted conscription during World War I than during the Vietnam War half a century later.

My dad was a civil rights lawyer, and he was actually defending conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.

We had the Vietnam War in the '60s, and there was a draft. The students didn't believe in it, and it unified them.

The boys that were running away from America because they didn't want to get involved with the Vietnam War had come to me. They would tell me how they felt.

To stand up for peace and against war and for disarmament is very courageous here in America.

I can't be on the side of any sort of war and I'm not going to be. I am against the war and I am very vocal about it.

Even if only 2 percent of those assigned to perform military service should announce their refusal to fight, governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to jail.

There are two ways of resisting war: the legal way and the revolutionary way. The legal way involves the offer of alternatinve service not as a privilege for a few but as a right for all. The revolutionary view involves an uncompromising resistance, with a view to breaking the power of militarism in time of peace or the resources of the state in time of war.