Quote from My Reading: America.

James Michener, Foreword: “[This is] a story that imparts exactly what makes America unique among nations, where any man or woman may start life with few advantages and then—through courage, brilliance, endurance, and hard work—achieve not only great material wealth but also turn that life into the greatest treasure of them all: a life filled with purpose.”

Piszek & Morgan, Some Good in the World: A Life of Purpose… p. x.

Quote from My Reading: Aggression.

“Generally, other conditions being equal, mere acquaintanceship with a fellow member of the species exerts a remarkably strong inhibitory effect on aggressive behavior.” [Simple acquaintance with the other person reduces aggression.]

Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression. p. 150.

Quote from My Reading: War.

“…but Wendell could not forget. Dead men sprawled among the corn, naked, stripped of trousers and boots, eyes staring, limbs flung out in awful abandon. For these boots and trousers the Rebels had fought like tigers. If the North fought for ‘victory,’ for ‘Union,’ ‘freedom,’ the South fought for shoes to put on its bleeding feet, pants for its legs, and fought no less bravely…. They [the Rebels] were not cowards.”

Yankee from Olympus. Catherine Drinker Bowen, p. 163.

Quote from My Reading: War.

“The longer he was in the war, the more Wendell Holmes was convinced that not death was the horror, but the loss of a young man’s chance to live. Never to have your chance, never to show the world—to show yourself what you could do!”

Yankee from Olympus. Catherine Drinker Bowen. p. 152.

Quote from My Reading: War.

"War was not chivalry. War was not gallantry, heroism, adventure. War was terrible and dull, and a man had better not try to make sense of it. A man had better just keep at it day by day, doing the next job that lay before him."

Yankee from Olympus. Catherine Drinker Bowen. p. 150.