Author Index: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Phil Klay


American
1983
Writer
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War is too strange to process alone.


Phil Klay
Tags: War Alone Too
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Pity addresses the perceived suffering, not the whole individual.


Phil Klay
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Resilience is, of course, necessary for a warrior. But a lack of empathy isn't.


Phil Klay
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Political novels are full of pitfalls, particularly for a novelist with strong political leanings.


Phil Klay
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People have a very political way of looking at war, and that's understandable.


Phil Klay
Tags: War People Very
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One thing I've always liked about the military is there's a certain amount of pragmatism.


Phil Klay
There's a very particular way that the military speaks. There's a lot of profanity and a lot of acronyms.
Phil Klay
Tags: Very Way Lot
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I never thought anyone would pity me because of my time in the Marine Corps.


Phil Klay
Tags: Time Me Because
Writing fiction was a way to take the ideas that troubled me or confused me and put them under pressure.
Phil Klay
Tags: Me Them Way
A great writer is a great writer... Tolstoy was not a woman, but 'Anna Karenina' is still a pretty good book.
Phil Klay
Tags: Good Great Still
The Cold War provided justification for a larger peacetime military, since we were never really at peace, or so the argument went.
Phil Klay
Tags: War Peace Really
Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean?
Phil Klay
Tags: Even America Mean
In a strange way, you have to have a certain amount of distance from a thing in order to be able to write about it.
Phil Klay
Tags: You About Way
I didn't want to write a 'this is how it is' Iraq book, because the Iraq War is an intensely complicated variety of things.
Phil Klay
Tags: War Because Want
I saw so many radically different versions of Iraq. It would have been difficult for me to come back and think, 'This is the Iraq experience.'
Phil Klay
The civilian wants to respect what the veteran has gone through. The veteran wants to protect memories that are painful and sacred to him from outside judgment.
Phil Klay
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.
Phil Klay
Tags: Like Who Up
You're not supposed to risk your life just for the physical safety of American citizens - you're supposed to risk your life for American ideals as well.
Phil Klay
Tags: You Just Life
I grew up a little north of New York City and went to high school at Regis, an all-boys tuition-free high school in Manhattan.
Phil Klay
Tags: Up New Little
We're told that when we remember, the same parts of our brain light up as when we experienced the event we're remembering. Your brain lives through it again.
Phil Klay
Tags: Up Your Our
I suppose it is the lot of soldiers and Marines to be objectified according to the politics of the day and the mood of the American people about their war.
Phil Klay
I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war.
Phil Klay
Tags: War History Been
It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.
Phil Klay
Tags: About Who Get
I write in coffee shops, libraries, parks, museums. I get antsy and then get on my bike and go someplace else, letting the ideas spin around in my head as I dodge taxis.
Phil Klay
Tags: Get Go Then
There's something odd about working 24/7, being consumed with everything that's happening in Iraq, and then coming back to the country that ordered you over there only to realize that a lot of Americans are not really paying attention.
Phil Klay
Tags: You About Really
War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war.
Phil Klay
Supposedly, going to war initiates you into this gnostic priesthood of people who've had a liminal experience forever separating them from civilians. Except... you go there, and it is what it is. A form of human activity as varied as any other.
Phil Klay
It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books.
Phil Klay
Tags: You People Who