The Things They Carried Quotes

This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross… and Kiowa. (Dedication)

I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war stories. My daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollar...

The war wasn't all terror and violence. Sometimes things could get almost sweet… You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance. (Spin.1-3)

He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war. (The Things The...

 Each morning we'd form up in a long column, the old poppa-san out front, and for the whole day we'd troop along after him, tracing his footsteps, playing an exact and ruthless game of follow...

They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. (The Things They Carried.39)

They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it re...

They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. (The Things They Carried.77)