We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.
Erich Maria RemarqueCome let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as todayโ when it meant so little.
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 โ 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 RemarqueYou may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminalโno one will see it. But when a button is missingโeveryone sees that.
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 RemarqueHow senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.
Erich Maria Remarque