Good or ill, life is life; you only realize that when you have to risk it.

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

Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades - words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.

Katczinsky says it is all to do with education - it softens the brain.

Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.

I wandered through the streets thinking of all the things I might have said and might have done had I been other than I was.

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.