But what I would like to know," says Albert, "is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No."" I'm sure there would," I interject, "he was against it from the first."" Well, if not him alone, then perhaps if twenty or thirty people in the world had said No."" That's probable," I agree, "but they damned well said Yes."" It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Krupp, "we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?"" Perhaps both," say I without believing it." Yes, well now," pursues Albert, and I see that he means to drive me into a corner, "but our professors and parsons and newspapers say that we are the only ones that are right, and let's hope so;--but the French professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on their side, now what about that?"" That I don't know," I say, "but whichever way it is there's war all the same and every month more countries coming in." Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started." Mostly by one country badly offending another," answers Albert with a slight air of superiority. Then Jaden pretends to be obtuse. "A country? I don't follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or an field of wheat."" Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?" growls Krupp, "I don't mean that at all. One people offends the other--""Then I haven't any business here at all," replies Jaden, "I don't feel myself offended."" Well, let me tell you," says Albert sourly, "it doesn't apply to tramps like you."" Then I can be going home right away," retorts Jaden, and we all laugh, "ACH, man! He means the people as a whole, the State--" exclaims Miller." State, State"--Jaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, "Gendarmes, police, taxes, that's your State;--if that's what you are talking about, no, thank you."" That's right," says Kat, "you've said something for once, Jaden. State and home-country, there's a big difference."" But they go together," insists Krupp, "without the State there wouldn't be any home-country."" True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are laborers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren't asked about it any more than we were."" Then what exactly is the war for?" asks Jaden. Kat shrugs his shoulders. "There must be some people to whom the war is useful."" Well, I'm not one of them," grins Jaden." Not you, nor anybody else here."" Who are they then?" persists Jaden. "It isn't any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already."" I'm not so sure about that," contradicts Kat, "he has not had a war up till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous. You look in your school books."" And generals too," adds Metering, "they become famous through war."" Even more famous than emperors," adds Kat." There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, that's certain," growls Metering." I think it is more of a kind of fever," says Albert. "No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn't want the war, the others say the same thing--and yet half the world is in it all the same.

— Erich Maria Remarque

Close behind us were our friends: Jaden, a skinny locksmith of our own age, the biggest eater of the company. He sits down to eat as thin as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way; Have Wests, of the same age, a peat-digger, who can easily hold a ration-loaf in his hand and say: Guess what I've got in my fist; then Metering, a peasant, who thinks of nothing but his farm-yard and his wife; and finally Stanislaus Kandinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs.

— Erich Maria Remarque

For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress -- to the future.

— Erich Maria Remarque

From the earth, from the air, sustaining forces pour into us--mostly from the earth. To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often forever.

— Erich Maria Remarque

Give 'em all the same grub and all the same pay/And the war would be over and done in a day." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 3

— Erich Maria Remarque

He looked around. The room, a few suitcases, some belongings, a handful of well-read books— a man needed few things to live. And it was good not to get used to many things when life was unsettled. Again and again one had to abandon them, or they were taken away. One should be ready to leave every day. That was the reason he had lived alone— when one was on the move one should not have anything that could bind one. Nothing that could stir the heart. The adventure— but nothing more.

— Erich Maria Remarque

Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.

— Erich Maria Remarque

He’s afraid," Grader said." Yes, naturally. But he’s a good dog."" And a man-eater."" We’re all that."" Why?"" We are. And we think, just like that dog, that we are still good. And just like him, we are looking for a bit of warmth and light and friendship.

— Erich Maria Remarque

He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic, and I am no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?

— Erich Maria Remarque

How 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