Quotes By R. Lee Ermey

Without discipline, there is no Marine Corp.

Every character I've ever played, I always try to take him right to the edge and not allow him to fall over, but directors have a tendency to pull me back a little bit.

America's trying to do the best for its veterans.

I've never had to spend any time in the VA hospital, so I really can't speak for those guys.

Kubrick ate it up. He loved it. He just let me go crazy.

You'd be surprised how many kids and young people come to the website and send me email that they are actually going into the Marine Corp because of something that I said or did.

I don't have any respect at all for the scum-bags who went to Canada to avoid the draft or to avoid doing their fair share.

The drill instructor must have total and complete control. Mindless obedience is what he's after.

There have been a lot of changes in recruit training in the past twenty years.

I'm never, like I say, I'm never happy, I'm never satisfied, it's never good enough.

Kubrick's films have life - they just never die.

I always love to come to Austin.

Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates.

Drill instructors worked seven days a week, fifteen to seventeen hours a day in many cases, with no time off in between platoons.

Communications are better now than in my Vietnam days.

I was stationed at a marine recruit depot in San Diego from 1965 to 1967.

For me, it's an honor for the military to ask me to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, or GITMO. I'm happy to go.

I don't have to be concerned about everybody else's character.

Playing the good guy is tough because you know as well as I do, in real life, you have to watch your P's and Q's and conduct yourself in a respectable manner if you expect to have friends.

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.

It's been a pretty fun ride, to tell you the truth.

It's my firm conviction that when Uncle Sam calls, by God we go, and we do the best that we can.

The best part about the movie, and everybody seems to rave about it, is the boot camp part.

I hate to hear 'Less is more.' It's a crock of crap.

When you try to find funding for a VVA function, it doesn't seem like it's any trouble at all. People come out of the woodwork with their money to help out because we went over and fought a war.

I got to write most of everything I said.

Everybody respects the Vietnam Veterans of America.

In order to be a good actor, I'm a firm believer that you need to bring something to the table.

The bad news motivated the drill instructors that much more.

That's all I cared about too, was getting it right.