por Truce is a novel written by the Uruguayan Mario Benedetti and published in 1960. It is a love novel, a tragic love that reveals to the protagonist the fatality of life. Martín Santomé, which is the name of the central character, is a 49-year-old widower whose only hobby is work.
The novel takes place in the form of a diary. It begins with the entry on Monday, February 11, 1958, and ends on Friday, February 28, 1959. Narrated in the first person, we learn first-hand of Martín’s most intimate thoughts, the deep illusion and the vital restlessness that accompanies it.
We have made a selection of best phrases of Trucea love and dramatic novel set in Montevideo in the late 50s. It has had two film adaptations, the first, an Argentine production from 1974, and the second, a 2003 Mexican production.
The best phrases of Truce
-Why do the palms of my hand have a more faithful memory than my memory? -Martin Santome.
-When that loneliness becomes routine, one inexorably loses the ability to feel shaken, to feel alive. -Martin Santome.
-There is a kind of automatic reflex in talking about death and immediately looking at the clock. -Martin Santome.
-Then I saw my filthy loneliness, what was left of me, which was very little. -Martin Santome.
-I have the horrible feeling that time passes and I do nothing and nothing happens, and nothing moves me to the root. -White.
-I got bored of myself, of my own patience. -Martin Santome.
-If I ever commit suicide, it will be on a Sunday. It is the most discouraging day, the most insipid. -Martin Santome.
-The most horrible variant of loneliness: the loneliness of one who doesn’t even have himself. -Martin Santome.
-Of all those hands, his was the only one that transmitted life. -Martin Santome.
How do I need it? God had been my most important lack. But I need her more than God. -Martin Santome.
-With Avellaneda, sex is (for me, at least) a less important, less vital ingredient; much more important, more vital, are our conversations, our affinities. -Martin Santome.
-When we made love, it seemed that each hard bone of mine corresponded to a soft hole in hers, that each impulse of mine found itself mathematically with its echo receptor. -Martin Santome.
-Possibly he loved me, who knows, but the truth is that he had a special ability to hurt me. -Laura Avellaneda.
-How many words, just to say that I don’t want to seem pathetic. -Martin Santome.
-Ours is that indefinite link that now unites us. -Martin Santome.
-There is within me a man who does not want to force events, but there is also another man who thinks obsessively about the rush. -Martin Santome.
-She gave me her hand and no more was needed. She reached for me to feel that I was welcomed. More than kissing her, more than sleeping together, more than anything else, she held my hand and that was love. -Martin Santome.
-Now I know. I don’t love you for your face, nor for your years, nor for your words, nor for your intentions. I love you because you are made of good wood. -Laura Avellaneda.
-This is how we are, each one on its shore, without hating each other, without loving each other, alien. -Martin Santome.
-Frankly, I do not know if I believe in God. Sometimes I imagine that, in the event that God exists, he would not be upset by this doubt. -Martin Santome.
-I talk to her as if I were talking to myself. -Martin Santome.
-It should be a general rule that we loners don’t like each other. Or is it that we are simply unsympathetic? -Martin Santome.
-The true division of the social classes would have to be done taking into account the time in which each one jumps out of bed. -Martin Santome.
-You are or you are not, the day does not matter. -Martin Santome.
-People generally end up feeling miserable, nothing more than for having believed that happiness was a permanent sensation of indefinable well-being, of joyful ecstasy, of perpetual festival. -Martin Santome.
-Suddenly I was aware that that moment, that this slice of everyday life, was the maximum degree of well-being, it was bliss. -Martin Santome.
-It is difficult for me to be affectionate, even in love life. I always give less than what I have. My style of wanting is that, a little reticent, reserving the maximum only for big occasions. -Martin Santome.
-But, ultimately, what is Lo Nuestro? For now, at least, it is a kind of complicity in front of the others, a shared secret, a unilateral pact. -Martin Santome.
-The delight in the face of the mystery, the enjoyment in the face of the unexpected, are sensations that sometimes my modest strength cannot bear. -Martin Santome.
-Look, I can assure you that when a woman loses herself, there is always a mean, cretinous, demeaning man who first made her lose faith in herself. -Old woman from the trolleybus.
-Time is running out. Sometimes I think that I would have to hurry, make the most of these remaining years. I have the distressing feeling that life is escaping me, as if my veins had opened and I could not stop my blood -Marín Santomé.
-What I like the most about you is something that there won’t be time to take away from you. -Laura Avellaneda.
-The security of knowing that I am capable of doing something better put postponement in my hands, which, after all, is a terrible and suicidal weapon. -Martin Santome.
-Sometimes I feel miserable, nothing more than not knowing what I’m missing. -White.
-It is certain that many of these alleged unfortunates are actually happy, but they do not realize it, they do not admit it, because they believe that they are very far from maximum well-being. -Martin Santome.
-Today was a happy day; just routine. -Martin Santome.
-One of the most pleasant things in life: seeing how the sun filters through the leaves. -Martin Santome.
-I hope you feel both protective and protected, which is one of the most pleasant sensations that a human being can afford. -Esteban.
-It is not eternity but it is the instant, which, after all, is its only true substitute. -Martin Santome.
-Sometimes we did accounts. She was never reaching. Perhaps we looked too much at numbers, additions, subtractions, and we didn’t have time to look at ourselves. -Martin Santome.
-It is very possible that what I am going to say seems crazy to you. If so, he just tells me. But I don’t want to beat around the bush: I think I’m in love with you. -Martin Santome.
-I had never been as fully happy as at that moment, but I had the hurtful feeling that I would never be happy again, at least to that degree, with that intensity. -Martin Santome.
-To look at the newspapers you have to lower your eyes. -Martin Santome.
-The world also stops sometimes to contemplate us, with a look that can also become diagnostic and eviction. -Martin Santome.
-When a woman cries in front of me, I become defenseless and also clumsy. I despair, I don’t know how to remedy it. -Martin Santome.
-With you I have no need to live on the defensive. I feel happy. -Laura Avellaneda.
-You have all the conditions to contribute to my happiness, but I have very few to contribute to yours. -Martin Santome.
-Although my heart now feels generous, happy, renewed, without her it would again be a definitely aged heart. -Martin Santome.
-The plan outlined is absolute freedom. Get to know each other and see what happens, let time pass and review. There are no obstacles. There are no commitments. She is splendid. -Martin Santome.
-She cried with her eyes up, without passing her hands over her face, she cried with pride. -Martin Santome.