Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.

On the steps is a machine-gun ready for action. The square is empty; only the streets that lead into it are jammed with people. It would be madness to go farther - the machine-gun is covering the square.

Come let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as today— when it meant so little.

We have our dreams because without them we could not bear the truth.

Katczinsky says it is all to do with education - it softens the brain.

We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.

To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.