Karl Marlantes Quotes

War is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world.

There's been rumors of war and wars that have been The meaning of life has been lost in the wind And some people thinkin' that the end is close by 'Stead of learnin' to live they are learnin' to die

What I hated even more than the conflict was the lurid spectacle of a world of unreason.

We human beings do a lot of dumb things, and war is certainly the dumbest.

All the gods are dead except the god of war.

I think it is a mistake to focus - as we most often do - only on the sacrifice of life that war requires. War also requires that we sacrifice our normal unwillingness to kill.

War is hell. You can't photograph a flying bullet, but you can capture genuine fear.

The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.

Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

Violence is for mugs. War is for mugs.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

War is a profane thing.

War is hell. Hollywood fantasizes about it and makes it look good... war sucks.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.

There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.

Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.

War can be fun for certain people. It's a magnet for sadists, losers, and angry dreamers.

For what can war, but endless war, still breed?

He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

We're going through a kind of ancient, barbaric war dance now - it's almost an ultimate in absurdity.

On the bastion and entrenchments white flags have been placed, the lowering valley is full of dead bodies, and the beautiful sun descends from the transparent sky to the undulating blue sea, which sparkles under the golden rays of the sun. Thousands of people crowd together, look at, speak to, and smile at each other. And these people, who are Christians, confessing one great law of love and self-sacrifice, looking at what they have done, do not suddenly fall with repentance on their knees before Him who has given them life, who has placed in the soul of each, together with the fear of death, the love of the good and beautiful. They do not embrace like brothers with tears of joy and happiness. No! The white flags are lowered, and again whistle the instruments of death and suffering, again flows innocent blood, and groans and curses are heard

War is death’s holy-day.

And this I hate—not men, nor flag nor race, But only War with its wild, grinning face.

What a miserable world. What colossal idiocy this war.