"In my dream...strapping good fellows marching behind the general...they'd shower us with decorations and flowers, we'd march through the Arc de Triomphe. We'd go to a restaurant, they'd serve us free of charge, we'd never pay for anything anymore, never as long as we lived. We're heroes! We'd say when they brought the bill. Defenders of the Patrie! That would do it!...We'd pay with little French flags!" (p. 13).

"The only argument we could have pitted against all; those wielders of power was our contemptible little with not to die and not to be burned alive." (p.37).

"I lacked the indispensable connections. The people I knew were all poor, people whose death is of no interest to anybody." (p. 40).

Soon there wasn't a bit of truth in the city. The little that had been left in 1914, people were ashamed of now. Everything you touched was phone...