James Jones

I write to reach eternity.

It will say just about everything I have ever had to say, or will ever have to say, on the human condition of war and what it means to us, as against what we claim it means to us.

Somewhere along the line, he thought, these things have become your heritage. You are multiplied by each sound that you hear. And you cannot deny them, without denying with them the purpose of your own existence...

This is the song of the men who have no place, played by a man who has never had a place, and can therefore play it.

This song is Reality. Remember? Surely you remember?

I'm an American, and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much — and its big, awkward, sprawling people.

There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.

Sometimes the air is awfully clear here. You can look off to sea and see the soft, warm, raggedy roof of clouds stretching on and on and on. It almost seems as if you can look right on into eternity.

If I get it, no one will ever know to what heights I might have gone as a writer. Maybe if you wrote about the promise that was there, all wouldn't be lost.