I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody else's secretary, fine.

The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.

Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.

I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president... except me.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

I will offer a choice, not an echo.

If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world.

I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone.

The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place.

American business has just forgotten the importance of selling.

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?

When I'm not a politician, I'll be dead.

You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description.

I certainly believe in aliens in space and that they are indeed visiting our planet. They may not look like us but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities.

After the 1954 Geneva international conference, Vietnam was divided into two parts. On paper, North and South Vietnam were twin countries born at the same moment.

Back in the old Corp, we weren't training those privates to infiltrate into the peacetime Marine Corp. We were training those privates to go to Vietnam.

If John Kerry had a dollar for every time he bragged about serving in Vietnam - oh wait, he does.

When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.

But although Australia was also involved in the Vietnam conflict, I can remember my dad telling us that if we were in Australia, we wouldn't be drafted until we were 20.

There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.

I did three tours in Vietnam. I guess a total of about almost two years.

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.

By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. How in the heck could they?

We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.

If the Mets can win the World Series, the United States can get out of Vietnam.

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

Although I wasn't able to get a visa for Vietnam, I was able to talk with swift boat veterans to get a feel for the time and place, and I visited a tropical prison in the Philippines to get a sense of what a Vietnamese prison might have been like.

Thank you for the sacrifices you and your families are making. Our Vietnam Veterans have taught us that no matter what are positions may be on policy, as Americans and patriots, we must support all of our soldiers with our thoughts and our prayers.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

After Watergate, America was a ship without a rudder. Vietnam was left to its own devices, drifting along towards its fate.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

By the mid-sixties, the United States had poured more than half a million troops into South Vietnam.

George W. had a plan. He arranged to join the Air National Guard in Texas, which meant he would not be sent to Vietnam.

At least I'm at peace with myself. I have done my best to write a book about what really happened there and why it happened and it's done, it's published. I won't write another book on Vietnam.

I remember the day I found out my draft status. I was really floored and kind of staggered around in a daze. It just hadn't occurred to me that I could end up in Vietnam.

John Kerry's service did not end in Vietnam. It began there.

South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon.