Extraits

There's nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you're so great your name will never be forgotten and who's that great? The most important thing is your life, little guys. You're worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don't let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we've got to fight for liberty, or whatever their word is. There's always a word.

All the guys who died all the five million or seven million or ten million who went out and died to make the world safe for democracy to make the world safe for words without meaning how did they feel about it just before they died? How did they feel as they watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they feel when the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did they feel as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face and saw him come and take them? If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you’ve given it away you’d ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?

You’re goddam right they didn’t.

They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They die yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child. They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They know what was important. They know that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live, I want to live.

« Non monsieur quiconque est allé dans les tranchées en première ligne pour se battre par amour de la liberté était un foutu imbécile et le gars qui l'a envoyé là-bas, était un menteur. La prochaine fois qu'on allait lui débiter tout ce charabia à propos de la liberté... que voulait-il dire par la prochaine fois? Il n'y aurait pas pour lui de prochaine fois. Au diable cette histoire. S'il pouvait y avoir une prochaine fois et qu'on vienne lui dire allons nous battre pour la liberté il répondrait ma vie est plus importante pour moi monsieur. Je ne suis pas un imbécile et si je donne ma vie en échange de la liberté il faut que je sache d'avance ce qu'est la liberté et de quel idéal de liberté nous parlons et quel degré de liberté nous posséderons »

Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can’t talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn’t know what death is. He isn’t able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn’t know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death before dishonor let him go ahead and die. But all the little guys who are too busy to fight should be left alone. And all the guys who say death before dishonor is pure bull the important thing is life before death they should be left alone too. Because the guys who say life isn’t worth living without some principle so important you’re willing to die for it seems they are all nuts. And the guys who say you’ll see there’ll come a time you cant escape you’re going to have to fight and die because it’ll mean your very life why they are also nuts. They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a man will have to die in order to protect his life. If you agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your life you aren’t alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing like that? A man doesn’t say I will starve myself to keep from starving. He doesn’t say I will spend all my money in order to save my money. He doesn’t say I will burn my house down in order to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of living? There ought to be at least as much common sense about living and dying as there is about going to the grocery store and buying a loaf of bread.

Just say "mister I'm sorry, I got no time to die, I'm too busy" and then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don't pay any attention because it's your job to live not to die. If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life, you say "mister you're a liar. Nothing is bigger than life". There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground and rotting? What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead? Because when you're dead, mister, it's all over. It's the end. You're less than a dog, less than a rat, less than a bee or an ant, less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead, mister, and you died for nothing.

À chaque coup de sonnette la solitude semblait augmenter. À chaque coup de sonnette sa frayeur s’accroissait.

Quelle impression a-t-on quand on est sourd et qu’on crie pour se faire comprendre par les gens ?

C’est seulement qu’étant sourd on se sent isolé. On se sent abandonné.

Le fait de posséder une voiture ou non prenait de grandes proportions et on se sentait très humilié d’emmener sa petite amie au pavillon à pied.

Il faut s’y prendre lentement car on ne s’arrête jamais et on ne peut pas aller au-delà de ses forces.