Top 100 Chris Kyle Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The good people of this world are very far from being satisfied with each other and my arms are the best peacemakers.” – Samuel Colt, 1852.”

— Chris Kyle

52. “I’ve lived the literal meaning of the “land of the free” and “home of the brave.” It’s not corny for me. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my chest.”

— Chris Kyle

53. “People ask me all the time, “How many people have you killed?” My standard response is, “Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man?”

— Chris Kyle

54. “But I wondered, how would I feel about killing someone? Now I know. It’s no big deal.”

— Chris Kyle

55. “Medals never tell the whole story. And like I said, in the end they’ve become more political than accurate.”

— Chris Kyle

56. “Yes, even SEALs use PowerPoint.”

— Chris Kyle

57. “As far as I can see it, anyone who has a problem with what guys do over there is incapable of empathy.”

— Chris Kyle

58. “There’s no reason someone who has fought for their country should be homeless of jobless.”

— Chris Kyle

59. “Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I’ve done. I find it strange, but I also feel it’s my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.”

— Chris Kyle

60. “Someone once asked me if I had a favorite distance. My answer was easy: the closer the better.”

— Chris Kyle

61. “I am a much better father and husband than I ever was a sniper.”

— Chris Kyle

62. “They naturally thought that anyone who was good should have a very high rank.”

— Chris Kyle

63. “Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq.”

— Chris Kyle

64. “When you’re working with Army and Marine Corps units, you immediately notice a difference. The Army is pretty tough, but their performance can depend on the individual unit. Some are excellent, filled with hoorah and first-class warriors. A few are absolutely horrible; most are somewhere in between. In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Every one of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.”

— Chris Kyle

65. “Until you actually experience something, you just don’t know.”

— Chris Kyle

66. “They were driven by more than just religion and adrenaline, even more than blood lust. They were already halfway to Paradise, in their minds at least.”

— Chris Kyle

67. “The Navy disqualified me when my physical revealed that I had pins in my arm from the rodeo accident. I tried arguing, I tried pleading; nothing worked. I even offered to sign a waiver saying that I’d never make the Navy responsible for anything that happened to my arm. They flat-out turned me down. And that, I concluded, was the end of my military career.”

— Chris Kyle

68. “You’re not just going out there, maybe sacrificing your own life. There’s also sacrifices still going on at home. You can serve in the military and have a good marriage, but you just need to be aware of it so you can take those steps to take care of it.”

— Chris Kyle

69. “Strangely, though, I like helos. During this workup, my platoon worked with MH-6 Little Birds. Those are very small, very fast scout-and-attack helicopters adapted for Special Operations work. Our versions had benches fitted to each side; three SEALs can sit on each bench. I loved them. True, I was scared.”

— Chris Kyle

70. “We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works.”

— Chris Kyle

71. “You forget how beautiful life is, if you don’t get a chance to see things like that.”

— Chris Kyle

72. “When I think about the patriotism that drives SEALs, I am reminded of Ryan recovering in a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. There he was, freshly wounded, almost fatally, and blind for life. Many reconstructive surgeries to his face loomed ahead. You know what he asked for? He asked for someone to wheel him to a flag and give him some time. He sat in his wheelchair for close to a half-hour saluting as the American flag whipped in the wind.”

— Chris Kyle

73. “Even before I heard the stories, I don’t think I was ever under illusions that war is pretty or nice.”

— Chris Kyle

74. “According to the ROEs I followed in Iraq, if someone came into my house, shot my wife, my kids, and then threw his gun down, I was supposed to NOT shoot him. I was supposed to take him gently into custody. Would you?”

— Chris Kyle

75. “I don’t worry about what other people think of me. It’s one of the things I most admired about my dad growing up. He didn’t give a hoot what others thought. He was who he was. It’s one of the qualities that has kept me most sane.”

— Chris Kyle

76. “The fanatics we fought valued nothing but their twisted interpretation of religion. And half the time they just claimed they valued their religion – most didn’t even pray.”

— Chris Kyle

77. “Oh, they may be tough individuals, but it takes more than personal toughness to be good leaders. The methods and goals have to contribute to the toughness.”

— Chris Kyle

78. “I’ve had good officers. But all the great ones were humble.”

— Chris Kyle

79. “Decades of Saddam’s rule made what could have been a fairly rich country, due to its oil reserves, into a very poor one.”

— Chris Kyle

80. “But I also think we create dependency by giving money to those who don’t want to work, both in other countries and our own. Help people help themselves – that’s the way it should be.”

— Chris Kyle

81. “I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars.”

— Chris Kyle

82. “You miss them so much when they deploy, and you want them to be home, but then when they are, things aren’t perfect. And you feel as if they should be. Depending on the deployment and what I’d been through, I also had emotions ranging from sadness to anxiety to anger.”

— Chris Kyle

83. “My guys were going back to war and I was flying home. That sucked. I felt like I was letting them down, shirking my duty. It was a conflict – family and country, family and brothers in arms – that I never really resolved.”

— Chris Kyle

84. “They had signs about baby killers and murderers and whatever, protesting the troops who were going over to fight. They were protesting the wrong people. We didn’t vote in Congress; we didn’t vote to go to war. I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars.”

— Chris Kyle

85. “I hope the legend of Chris Kyle continues to grow and touch more and more people. I hope, too, that the movie will give people a small understanding of the massive sacrifice these guys make in going to war. It’s hard to comprehend the journey and hardship these servicemen and their families go through. There is tremendous patriotism behind it but beyond that there is a great sacrifice SEALs and all our military make. If this movie can offer a small window into that world, I’ll be very happy.”

— Chris Kyle

86. “The Navy did not promise that I would be a SEAL; I had to earn that privilege. What they did guarantee, though, was that I would have a chance to try out. As far as I was concerned, that was good enough, because there was no way that I was going to fail.”

— Chris Kyle

87. “States HarperCollins Publishers.”

— Chris Kyle

88. “We are, in many ways, opposites. Still, we seemed to click. One day on the phone he was asking what I thought made us compatible. I decided to tell him some of the things that drew me to him. “I think you’re a really good guy,” I told him, “really nice. And sensitive.”

— Chris Kyle

89. “The rules are drawn up by lawyers who are trying to protect the admirals and generals from the politicians; they’re not written by people who are worried about the guys on the ground getting shot.”

— Chris Kyle

90. “Anticipation makes things worse.”

— Chris Kyle

91. “I would love for people to be able to think of me as a guy who stood up for what he believed in and helped make a difference for the vets.”

— Chris Kyle

92. “The purpose of war, as Patton put it, is to make the other dumb bastard die.”

— Chris Kyle

93. “No SEAL has ever actually admitted feeling pain since the beginning of Creation.”

— Chris Kyle

94. “I don’t know how high I went, I don’t wanna know. Heights are not my favorite thing. It makes my balls go in my throat just thinking about it.”

— Chris Kyle

95. “If you can’t make sense of things, you start to look for some other way to deal with them. You laugh because you have to have some emotion, you have to express yourself somehow.”

— Chris Kyle

96. “I was coming off months of anxiety for his safety and frustration that he chose to keep going back. I wanted to count on him, but I couldn’t. His Team could, and total strangers who happened to be in the military could, but the kids and I certainly could not.”

— Chris Kyle

97. “I believe the fact that I’ve accepted Jesus as my savior will be my salvation.”

— Chris Kyle

98. “I was tempted to get up and run over to the bell that would end my torture – if you ring this bell, you’re taken in for coffee and a doughnut.”

— Chris Kyle

99. “They were already halfway to Paradise, in their minds at least.”

— Chris Kyle

100. “I also learned how to take the images and paste them onto PowerPoint for briefings and the like. Yes, even SEALs use PowerPoint.”

— Chris Kyle