How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from From Here to Eternity.
Quote #1
PREWITT: I'm a thirty-year man, in for the whole ride.
LORENE: I suppose it's different when a fellow makes a career out of it.
PREWITT: Nothing wrong with a soldier that isn't wrong with everyone else.
Prewitt wants to be a lifetime soldier, which further dashes Lorene's expectations of making a "proper" life with him. She wants to climb further up the social scale, while Prewitt doesn't mind being where he is.
Quote #2
LORENE: I enlisted too. Came out here on my own to get away from my hometown in Oregon.
PREWITT: How come?
LORENE: I had a boy friend. I was a waitress. He was from the richest family in town. He just married the girl suitable for his position. After three years of going around with me. It's a pretty story, isn't it? Maybe they could make a movie of it.
PREWITT: They did. Ten thousand of them.
Lorene was passed over for another girl because of her social status. This is probably a big motivating factor in her desire to live a "proper" life. She wants to remedy the problem that hurt her so much. Prewitt points out how common and tragically typical that sort of situation is.
Quote #3
PREWITT: Why's it funny if a guy wants to marry you?
ALMA: Because I'm a girl you met at the New Congress Club! And that's about two steps up from the pavement.
PREW: Okay—I'm a private no class dogface. The way most civilians look at it, that's two steps up from nothing.
Prewitt suggests that they both have the same amount of social status—which means they'd be good together. However, Alma doesn't see things that way, as demonstrated in the next quote.