Jack Cady Quotes

The rules would seem to indicate," I told him, "that if you start a war you really can't complain when people drop bombs on you.

Never confuse an idiot.

The message says that, unless it is stopped right now, it all begins again; the old hatreds, the ego rampant, the fists raised proclaiming that one or another god grants the right to yell instead of think. The message says that each time the world forgets how Evil exists, Evil gets a resurrection; and the word “honor,” extinguishing, turns to smoke.
But there once lived men who knew that some things were worth dying for. There once were women who fought for their own, and fought for others as much as they were able.
In a geriatric ward a body is no big advantage, anyway, and so this is how it shapes: we can’t form the future but we can show responsibility.

“I almost don’t believe in ghosts.”
She was stating part of the problem. If ghosts are a metaphor for history, then belief is a leap into reality. If history is a metaphor for ghosts, matters get really serious.

Humans, being creative, can rewrite anything.
...which is a coy way of suggesting that each young generation invents history according to its own bigotries. The rewritten history gets quoted to show that one or another special group has perpetually saved civilization while suffering abuse known only to holy saints. The justification for historians is the same as the justification for janitors. Both sweep up the mess when the public gets done trashing.

On top of the war talk, women were driving me crazy: the ones who said “no” and the ones who said “yes.” It got downright mystifying just trying to figure out which was worse. At nineteen, it’s hard to know how to act.

Some remnant of battle must remain, something halting an advance. The ghost of a ghost may be more than a memory. It may be a piece of history that refuses to be rewritten.

We have the power of memory. We have the memory of order, and we still have voices. When memory dies, civilization dies.

I needed this the way guys in trenches need head lice.

No one recalls the names of dog soldiers who fought beside Leonidas at Thermopylae, or with Charles Martel at the battle of Tours; but how they fought, and what they fought for, lives through centuries. Without those forgotten men western civilization could not have come into being. They put it all on the line, because there are times in history when universal evil crawls from its cave of darkness.
When those battles happened, though, what did anyone know? The dog soldier only knew that some fool Persian had it in his head to whip the world, or a Moorish chieftain was on the prod.
And the dog soldier stood. He stood between the enemy and home, standing before a way of life that was particularly his. If in his home he was boss during peace, then during war he paid for the honor. The male of the species defends his land and home. It will always be that way. At least that is true of the Infantry.

All the mysteries of the world seem normal after dark. If imagination shows dead thumbs aching for a ride, those dead folk only prove the hot and spermy goodness of life.

So what use are we? Burnside hopes to die exhausted in a cathouse, with the sweet-sweet taste of bourbon on his tongue. My own ambition is less raunchy. I want, at age ninety, to be gunned down while storming the Congress.

The fires of history burn hot and long, but memories of fires do not burn long enough.

Courage, combined with stupidity, does not make successful soldiers.

Snowy owls come floating in from northward, while folks go to church on Sunday against the time when there’s some better amusement. Men hang around town, because home is either empty or crowded, depending on if you’re married. Folks sit before television, watching the funny, goofy, unreal world where everybody plays at being sexy and naked, even when they’re not.