From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

When you cut with life you had to use the house deck, not your own.

It is the knowledge of the unendingness and of the repetitious uselessness, the do it up so it can be done again, that makes Fatigue fatigue.

“I decided to not believe in mortal sin, since obviously no Creator who was Just would condemn His creations to eternal hellfire and brimstone for possessing hungers He created in them. He might penalize them fifteen yards for clipping, but He wouldnt stop the ball game. Now would He?”

I believe all conscious dishonesty, such as religion, politics and the real estate business, are a conscious waste of energy.

“You know what caused my hysterectomy? I bet you couldnt guess. Gonorrhea caused this one. Gonorrhea causes most of them. Not all of them, of course, but a large majority.

“Social fear is the most tremendous single source of power in existence.

“But what I dont see,” Holmes said suddenly. “What do you suppose makes them all afraid like that? I’m not afraid, not of the truth.” And he meant it truly. He looked deep inside himself, there was no fear there. Sam Slater shrugged. “Environmental training, I suppose. Psychologically, its a sort of subjective association of oneself with the external object. Some boys cant shoot birds because they put themselves into the place of the injured bird. Same thing.”

He had fought Bloom because he had had to fight somebody, or else bite himself and go mad, the same reason Bloom had fought him, two men who were on edge and ridden raw, and they got in a fight for the amusement of all concerned, except themselves, and fought each other, and that was all, him and Bloom who probably had more in common than any other two men in the Company,

fighting each other, because it was so much easier than trying to find the real enemy to fight, because the real enemy the common enemy was so hard to find since you did not know what it was to look for it and could not see it to get your hands on it, so you fought each other, which was easier, and also made it easier to put up with the real enemy the common enemy, whatever it was, that you could not find, but not because Bloom was a Jew or you a something else.

“You know where the words Dogface and Dog Soldier come from?” he said suddenly. “They come from the old Cheyenne War Society in the Plains Wars, they called themselves Dog Soldiers. The Cavalry took it from them.”

Anyway, whoever the hell a man does vote for anyway, its always all the same: They all of them get together ahead of time and figure it out and make their trades and put in the men they want anyway.”

“Ahh, yes, I have my memories,” his daemon popped up and prodded devilishly. “Whatever happens, I still have my memories.”