We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 5

— Erich Maria Remarque

We were never very demonstrative in our family; poor folk who toil and are full of cares are not so. It is not their way to protest what they already know. When my mother says to me "dear boy," it means much more than when another uses it.

— Erich Maria Remarque

We were trained in the army for ten weeks and in this time more profoundly influenced than by ten years at school. We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer. At first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent, we recognized that what matters is not the mind but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill. We became soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they have done everything to knock that out of us. After three weeks it was no longer incomprehensible to us that a braided postman should have more authority over us than had formerly our parents, our teachers, and the whole gamut of culture from Plato to Goethe.

— Erich Maria Remarque

We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short.

— Erich Maria Remarque

What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love!

— Erich Maria Remarque

What’s going on outside, Ravi?” “Nothing new, Kate. The world goes on eagerly preparing for suicide and at the same time deluding itself about what it’s doing.” “Will there be war?” “Everyone knows that there will be war. What one does not yet know is when. Everyone expects a miracle.” Ravi smiled. “Never before have I seen so many politicians who believe in miracles as at present in France and England. And never so few as in Germany.” She remained lying silent for a while. “To think that it should be possible—” she said then. “Yes— it seems so impossible that it will happen some day. Just because one considers it so impossible and doesn’t protect oneself against it.

— Erich Maria Remarque

When we love each other we are immortal and indestructible like the heartbeat and the rain and the wind.

— Erich Maria Remarque

Where would the world be if we took every man to book? There were thousands of Cantors, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best-in a way that cost them nothing.

— Erich Maria Remarque

You can deceive yourself with truth too. That's an even more dangerous dream.

— Erich Maria Remarque

Может быть, у смерти совсем другое имя. Мы ведь видим ее всегда только с одной стороны. Может быть, смерть - это совершенная любовь между нами и Богом.

— Erich Maria Remarque