Come let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as todayโ when it meant so little.
Erich Maria RemarqueHe fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.
Erich Maria RemarqueI am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;--I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life...I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me.
Erich Maria RemarqueWe are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go outโฆwe creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the nightโฆand thus we wait for morning.
Erich Maria RemarqueKat and Kropp get in an argument over the war as they rest from an hourโs worth of drill (occasioned by Tjadenโs not saluting a major properly). Kat believes the war would be over if leaders gave all the participants โthe same grub and the same pay,โ as he says in a rhyme. Kropp believes the leaders of each country should fight each other in an arena to settle the war; the โwrongโ people currently do the fighting.
Erich Maria Remarque