Dexter Filkins Quotes

We, as actors, see luxury around us, but when we step out, we see the struggle and reality which people are going through.

Men are fighting... because they are convinced that the extermination of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.

Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall.

O’ Yes. War is better than slavery.

When I went to Kabul - weeks after I finished 'The Kite Runner' - I met a lot of people from all walks of life: men, women, children, people from ministries, hotel doormen, shopkeepers. And I learned from them what daily life was like when the rockets were flying overhead.

The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer.

Whenever I'm on my way to a premiere or something, I always have a good laugh in the car... because it's all so absurd - I'm one generation removed from starvation.

In a war zone you know exactly where the threats are coming from. I plan my way in and we plan our way out and you're there for a limited period of time.

Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it.

Military history is essential to understanding any history and, moreover, is a terrifying and sobering study in the realities of human nature - for yes, to me, such a thing exists, and history indeed proves it.

I was forced to be political because I had bombs falling on me as a child in Tehran.

Fighting has been a part of my life for my entire existence.

I think that maybe human beings are conditioned to violence.

I'd rather be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.

I would never take my children and place them next to missile launchers.

For a lot of people, life's been pretty good. There hasn't been true terror right in your face.

I've lived an easy life, the life you dream about. And at that time I thought it was normal, but it's so far from normal.

You know, life hasn't changed that much for me. It's just, everything's gotten a little nicer. I drive a nicer car. I live in a nicer house.

They wouldn’t have believed me, and if they had they would have wanted me to explain. And I had no explanation, no answers. When you’re on a battleground, you don’t have the luxury of time to dwell on the various historical factors and sociopolitical influences that caused the war. You just keep your head down and try to survive it, to shove the pages back in the book, close the covers and pretend that nothing’s broken, nothing’s wrong.

There is no man, and no place, without war. The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight. That is the only choice we get - who we fight for, who we fight against. That is life.

Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.

You speak as if a war were raging." "To the remains of the human race, one is.

When you're at war, you think about a better life; when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one.

The wars they will be fought again The holy dove be caught again bought and sold and bought again; the dove is never free.

No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.