It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hour's bombardment unscratched. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.
Erich Maria RemarqueLet 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, Chapter 12
Erich Maria RemarqueWe were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.
Erich Maria RemarqueFor a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real, profound sense, is life; and perhaps happiness even - love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.
Erich Maria Remarque