It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.

The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavour to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. It is impossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly and pithily. Our families and our teachers will be shocked when we go home, but here it is the universal language.

Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days;--when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without.

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.

We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

I felt the first soft glow of intoxication that makes the blood warmer and spreads an illusion of adventure over uncertainty.

Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.