“It is bad if you praise, and worse if you reprove a thing, I mean, if you do not understand the matter well.”

“No matter how bad things get, you can always see the beauty in them. The worse things get, the more you have to make yourself see the magic in order to survive.”

“Pain's not bad, it's good. It teaches you things. I understand that.”

“I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.”

“Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.”

“You gotta remember that in war, you’re not deciding between the bad thing to and the good thing. You’re choosing between the bad and the worse. And you can’t control the shit that happens after you choose.”

“When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do — well, that’s Memoirs.”

“If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are.”

“When I did well, as a boy you used to put me in prison. Now if I do it being grown up, you will do worse to me.”

“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”