“Fundamentally I think soldiering is pretty similar to politics. It’s not about you, it’s all about the people you serve with. It’s all about the results, it’s all about the operation, it’s all about the mission. The reason we’re here at all in politics is to serve the people.”

“Increasingly, politics is not about "who gets what, when, how" but about values, each of them considered to be absolute. Politics is about "the right to life"…It is about the environment. It is about gaining equality for groups alleged to be oppressed…None of these issues is economic. All are fundamentally moral.”

“As he continued to talk to me, I realized one of the fundamental points about Islamism that so many people fail to understand. The way Osman was speaking wasn’t in the orthodox, religious way of the imam with a stick; he was talking about politics, about events that were happening now. That’s crucial to understanding what Islamism is all about: it isn’t a religious movement with political consequences, it is a political movement with religious consequences.”

“With all of our differences, we [members of the audience] all have one thing in common, we’re all gay. Now there are people out there [in audience] going “Do they think we’re gay because we’re here? Do we look gay? I told you this would happen. We’re not going to understand a word of this.” Seriously, though, if you're here you're probably gay. I mean, you have tendencies, you've thought about it. Now there are people [in audience] going “I have thought about it. Does that mean I'm gay? I'm not gay. Is that how they get us?””

“You know, Mouse, I envy the captain. He’s got a mission. And his obsession precludes all that wondering about what other people think of him.”

“Politics is not about justice. It's about the settling of personal vendettas under a thin veneer of civilization. All politics is personal.”

“It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you.”

“I can’t talk to you about music because you don’t know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can’t talk to you about music. There’s not enough information in common that I could say to you so you’d be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don’t give a fuck about music anyway.”

“Dogs are clever fellows; they know all about politics […]”

“Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” Travis said.
“All the more reason to care about myself and others.”