I, too, am going to go away soon,' she says, 'I am weary and weary of my weariness. Everything is beginning to be a little empty and full of leave-taking and melancholy and waiting.

Yes, that's the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? That is long ago. We are old folk.

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.

You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well.

You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal—no one will see it. But when a button is missing—everyone sees that.

The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy.

We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.