• and his flat nose bent hard right, the same as his politics.
• How those two concocted a child as cute as Duc was a mystery, or perhaps simply as logical as how two negatives when multiplied together yield a positive.
• it’s hard to find honest men when men have families to feed
• As always, money solved the problem. After some strong persuasion on my part, Violet agreed to double the wages for those extras playing Viet Cong, an incentive that allowed these freedom fighters to forget that playing those other freedom fighters had once been so repugnant an idea.
• Not even families with a daughter of mixed ancestry welcomed me, for the daughter was herself usually frantic to squeeze into the elevator of social mobility through marriage to someone of a pure pedigree
• Like a shark who must keep swimming to live, a politician—which was what the General had become—had to keep his lips constantly moving.
• He was likewise a scholarship student at a college in Orange County, an hour away by car. It was the birthplace of the war criminal Richard Nixon, as well as the home of John Wayne, a place so ferociously patriotic I thought Agent Orange might have been manufactured there or at least named in its honor.
• The airing of moral doubts was as tiresome as the airing of domestic squabbles, no one really interested except for the ones directly involved
• It was, instead, the best kind of truth, the one that meant at least two things…No, Madame, I said, I wouldn’t want to marry that, also the two-faced truth, for marriage was not the first thing on my mind when I saw her onstage.
• I pitied the French for their naïveté in believing they had to visit a country in order to exploit it. Hollywood was much more efficient, imagining the countries it wanted to exploit.
• a job I characterized as undermining the enemy’s propaganda.
• the tide of sympathy pulled me toward them
• Your problem isn’t that you think too much; your problem is letting everyone know what you’re thinking.
• how you wouldn’t want anyone for your friend who actually wanted to be your friend. Deep down you suspect only fools and traitors would believe your promises.
• We would all be in Hell if convicted of our thoughts.
• a substantial donation by the Auteur to the policemen’s benevolent association, otherwise known as the local brothel.
• Remember that the best medical treatment is a sense of relativism. No matter how badly you might feel, take comfort in knowing there’s someone who feels much worse.
• One way to forget a certain kind of pain was to feel another kind of pain, as when the doctor examining you for mandatory military service (an exam that you never fail, unless you are afflicted by wealth) slaps you on one butt cheek while injecting you in the other cheek
• Weapons I professionally admired, but vodka and novels I loved.
• These questions required either Camus or cognac, and as Camus was not available I ordered cognac.