From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

“It was the Japs,” Georgette said. “The Japs. The dirty yellow-bellied little Japs. They sneaked in without warning and made a cowardly attack while their decoys was still in Washington crying peace.”

“Maybe we only love the things we cannot have. Maybe thats all love is. Maybe its supposed to be that way.

“What good will money and power do a man? If he’s alone. A man tries to get ahead because of his wife and his sons. So he can give them the things he’s never had. So he can make life nice for them. So he can have a home. And a family.”

Stendhal’s philosophy of happiness. It was not a moral philosophy; it was a very materialistic philosophy. Many people probably would not approve of it. Its only purpose was to deduce and plan ahead of time rationally, how to make life completely interesting and fully happy. The good thing about that Stendhal, he understood the very important place that misery and tragedy played in the making of a full happiness. She had never thought of that, any more than she had never thought of a philosophy constructed for the sole purpose of making life happy.

“We must remember people will be reading this book a couple hundred years after I’m dead, and that the

Scribner’s first edition will be worth its weight in gold by then. We must never forget that.”

The novel was published on February 25, 1951, and had phenomenal sales.