20 quotes
A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
It is when one is alone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
A hospital alone shows what war is.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers — we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Mortality is man's invention; not in the logic of life.
Three Comrades (1936)
It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is often brought on by small men. They are so much more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
But not enough has been thought about idleness. It is the foundation of all happiness and the end of all philosophy.
Three Comrades (1936)
Modesty and conscientiousness receive their reward only in novels. In life they are exploited and then shoved aside.
Birthdays weigh heavily on one's self-esteem. Early in the morning especially.
All decent people are melancholy when evening comes. Not for any particular reason. Just on general grounds.
Three Comrades (1936)
The death of one man is death, the death of two millions is a statistic.
Pity is the most useless article in the world. [...] It's the reverse side of gloating, you ought to know that.
Three Comrades (1936)
What's piety but the sense of guilt? People want to square off all the things they have wished and done to the beloved dead while they were alive.
Three Comrades (1936)
After all, isn't it just as well, Bob, that they should have their bit of fun that is so important to them? It keeps them going, staves off the evil day when they will be alone. And to be alone, really alone, without illusion, that way lies madness—and suicide.
Three Comrades (1936)
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)