I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.

For 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.

No soldier outlives a thousand chances.

There was only the broad square with the scattered dim moons of the street lamps and with the monumental stone arch which receded into the mist as though it would prop up the melancholy sky and protect beneath itself the faint lonely flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which looked like the last grave of mankind in the midst of night and loneliness.

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

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

Keep things at arm's length... If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.