I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their forms move like stick storks, like great birds. They come close up to the wire fence and lean their faces against it. Their fingers hook round the mesh.

We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important to us. And good boots are hard to come by." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 2

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

No matter how improbable an assertion is, if it is made with enough assurance it has an affect.

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

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

At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood-nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs.