Charlie Brooker Quotes

A lot of the fighters will say you'll know if a fighter's won or lost just by a fighter's eyes - whether they're scared of the other person.

And the program was developed in large part by behavioral scientists who were working with the military, who do everything they possibly can to measure a soldier's stress levels to see how they're doing physically and emotionally, as they go through this program.

History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security.

The U.S. public is more likely to sour on a conflict when it sees the military losing blood, not treasure. So to keep up our staying power, our skill in hunting and killing our foes has to be matched by our care in concealing and protecting our troops. Three particularly obvious requirements are body armor, mine-resistant vehicles, and telescopic and night sights for every weapon. But these things are expensive for a military that has historically been enamored of big-ticket items such as fighter planes, ships and missiles.

I was sent to Korea, which was excellent training for what came later. I was assigned to remain on duty until I completed one hundred combat missions - or got knocked out - whichever came first.

It's really shocking to see what the military can do, strip you of any personality, turn you into an aggressive, sociopathic sadist before even going into a battlefield.

In the army we are drilled into execution and then supervision, to make sure everything goes the way you planned it. But there is another thing that we do in the military, that I think perhaps isn't done enough in corporate life: As soon as you have made that decision, you start on the contingency planning. Because there is, as we like to say, a thinking, breathing enemy out there, who is not going to let you do just what you want.

When you're in the military, especially if you serve, you leave in this heightened world of having adrenaline course through you, all the time. You get addicted to that because adrenaline is essentially a drug.

Film is a visceral experience so I think a good war movie is a valuable tool for making us understand what our military goes through, what the issues are, the good and bad sides of war and what we're asking our military to do.

Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

I'm inclined to think that a military background wouldn't hurt anyone.

Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.

To expect ... the same service from raw and undisciplined recruits, as from veteran soldiers, is to expect what never did and perhaps never will happen. Men, who are familiarized to danger, meet it without shrinking; whereas troops unused to service often apprehend danger where no danger is.

Use makes a better soldier than the most urgent considerations of duty,--familiarity with danger enabling him to estimate the danger. He sees how much is the risk, and is not afflicted with imagination; knows practically Marshal Saxe's rule, that every soldier killed costs the enemy his weight in lead.

I think military is a very special thing.

I think the key anecdote in the book is when Colin [Powell] and I were discussing Iraq. Colin was upstairs in the Treaty Room, in the residence. And he talks about his concerns about the use of military in Iraq. And I said I felt the same concerns, but it might be that we have to use it. In which case, he said, "I support you."

If you polled the military in Afghanistan as to how many think we should be there or not, the numbers would probably be similar to what the U.S. population believes. That's not because they're watching the news. But, hey, they are out there risking their lives. No one likes to be criticized and it really sucks to be criticized when you're risking your life.

I don't think anything needs to happen in a book.

I think the reason why more rapists go into the military is the same reason why predators go into the Catholic Church. It's a place they know they can get away with it.

One of the problems and the reason why Carolyn [Maloney ] wrote the book, the Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated is that some people think we have made it when we have not and there's much to be done.

I do think there are always ways to create what seem like insurmountable powers, but then suddenly you find their limitations and that's the nature of comic book storytelling - always has been.

Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book.

Of his new book, Don says: “It might be the greatest book ever written. I don’t think anybody is going to read a book again after they read my new one. I think God is proud of me. I am going to make a killing off this thing and I’m going to use the money to go to space.

Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any way hampered by the presence of books.

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.