Quotes from Phil Klay

Sometimes macho language is to mask things people are not ready to deal with.

People lie to themselves all the time about what they've been through and what it means - I'm no exception. But you write those lies down - lies that really matter to you and that are really painful to let go of because they've become a part of who you are - and they don't work.

Responsibility and accountability is a big part of being in the military.

I ended up going to Dartmouth, and I did Marine Officer Candidate School during my junior summer.

When I was in Marine training I memorised 'The Waste Land,' which was a significant experience in terms of really breaking apart language and thinking about how the different voices in that poem function.

For me, leaving the Marine Corps was more disorienting than returning home.

I was a public affairs officer. I worked with the media, but I didn't just stay at my desk. I assisted in military duties, travelled around Anbar province, hung out with a wide variety of Marines.

Fiction offered me tools that allowed me to approach a wider variety of issues than the events of my own life would.

Going to war is a rare experience in American culture, so it's easy for simple notions to gain a lot of weight. The reality is always more complex.

I like the ethos of the military and the idea of joining an institution in which, at the very least, everyone who signs up believes in something.

I always wrote - not about war, necessarily, but I always wrote stories. I tried to write while I was in Iraq. It's not really - I didn't do a very good job, and not about war.

I did try to write in Iraq, and I failed. I think you just don't have the brain space for it.