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 RemarqueLittle by little things began to assume a new aspect. The sense of insecurity vanished, words came of themselves, I was no longer so painfully conscious of everything I said. I drank on and felt the great soft wave approach and embrace me; the dark hour began to fill with pictures and stealthily the noiseless procession of dreams appeared again superimposed on the dreary, grey landscape of existence.
Erich Maria RemarqueI did not want to think so much about her. I wanted to take her as an unexpected, delightful gift, that had come and would go again — nothing more. I meant not to give room to the thought that it could ever be more. I knew too well that all love has the desire for eternity and that therein lies its eternal torment. Nothing lasts. Nothing.
Erich Maria RemarqueThey are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.
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