Going To Another Country Doesn’t Make Any

There Will Always Be People Who Say It Does Not Exist Because They Cannot Have It. But I Tell You It Is True And That You Have It And That You Are Lucky Even If You Die Tomorrow.

You See I'm Trying In All My Stories To Get The Feeling Of The Actual Life Across, Not Just To Depict Life, Or Criticize It, But To Actually Make It Alive.

Survival, With Honor, That Outmoded And All-important Word, Is As Difficult As Ever And As All-important To A Writer. Those Who Do Not Last Are Always More Beloved Since No One Has To See Them In Their Long, Dull, Unrelenting, No-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, Fights That They Make To Do Something As They Believe It Should Be Done Before They Die. Those Who Die Or Quit Early And Easy And With Every Good Reason Are Preferred Because They Are Understandable And Human. Failure And Well-disguised Cowardice Are More Human And More Beloved.

When You Go To War As A Boy You Have A Great Illusion Of Immortality. Other People Get Killed; Not You. . . . Then When You Are Badly Wounded The First Time You Lose That Illusion And You Know It Can Happen To You. After Being Severely Wounded Two Weeks Before My Nineteenth Birthday I Had A Bad Time Until I Figured Out That Nothing Could Happen To Me That Had Not Happened To All Men Before Me. Whatever I Had To Do Men Had Always Done. If They Had Done It Then I Could Do It Too And The Best Thing Was Not To Worry About It.

Work Every Day. No Matter What Has Happened The Day Or Night Before, Get Up And Bite On The Nail.