Marius’s Reviews > Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country > Status Update

You won't believe how much one can forget, it's a great blessing and a damned
misfortune.

Jealousy begins with the air the other breathes.

The simplest way to tear oneself away from a woman is to sleep with her again occasionally. Not to let your fantasy run wild with you. Who wants to dramatize a natural act?

The best way to lose a woman was to show her a kind of life that one could offer her for only a few days. She would try to regain it—but with someone else who was capable of making it permanent.

At night time stands still. Only the clocks move.

A Jew sees the transaction; a Frenchman only the money he is going to hand out.

But as it is, the remnant of desire for the man one leaves behind, or by whom one is left behind, becomes the halo around the head of the new one.

Happiness lies all around us. We only have
to pick it up.

Nothing but that you are of a wild innocence. Completely corrupt and not corrupt at all. The most dangerous thing in the world.

Help when you can; do everything then—but when you can no longer do anything, forget it! Turn away! Pull yourself together. Compassion is meant for quiet times. Not when life is at stake. Bury the dead and devour life! You'll still need it. Mourning is one thing, facts are another. One doesn't mourn less when one sees the facts and accepts them. That is how one survives.