Quotes by Erich Maria Remarque

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

A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. 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.

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

Were no longer young men. Weve lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen years old, and we had just begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. Weve been cut off from real action, from getting on, from progress. We dont believe in those things any more; we believe in the war.

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 again and often forever.

Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me. -All Quiet On The Western Front, Chapter 12

We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land. All the same, we are not often sad.

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

The things men did or felt they had to do.

But what I would like to know, says Albert, is whether there would not have been a war if the Kaiser had said No.Im 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.Thats probable, I agree, but they damned well said Yes.Its queer, when one thinks about it, goes on Kropp, we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now whos 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 lets hope so;--but the French professors and parsons and newspapers say that the right is on their side, now what about that?That I dont know, I say, but whichever way it is theres 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 Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. A country? I dont follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat.Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg? growls Kropp, I dont mean that at all. One people offends the other--Then I havent any business here at all, replies Tjaden, I dont feel myself offended.Well, let me tell you, says Albert sourly, it doesnt apply to tramps like you.Then I can be going home right away, retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh, Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State-- exclaims Mller.State, State--Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, Gendarmes, police, taxes, thats your State;--if thats what you are talking about, no, thank you.Thats right, says Kat, youve said something for once, Tjaden. State and home-country, theres a big difference.But they go together, insists Kropp, without the State there wouldnt 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 labourers, 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 werent asked about it any more than we were.Then what exactly is the war for? asks Tjaden.Kat shrugs his shoulders. There must be some people to whom the war is useful.Well, Im not one of them, grins Tjaden.Not you, nor anybody else here.Who are they then? persists Tjaden. It isnt any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already.Im 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 Detering, they become famous through war.Even more famous than emperors, adds Kat.There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, thats certain, growls Detering.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 didnt want the war, the others say the same thing--and yet half the world is in it all the same.

I lie down on many a station platform; I stand before many a soup kitchen; I squat on many a bench;--then at last the landscape becomes disturbing, mysterious, and familiar. It glides past the western windows with its villages, their thatched roofs like caps, pulled over the white-washed, half-timbered houses, its corn-fields, gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the slanting light, its orchards, its barns and old lime trees. The names of the stations begin to take on meaning and my heart trembles. The train stamps and stamps onward. I stand at the window and hold on to the frame. These names mark the boundaries of my youth.

We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty. If a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall. - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 6

Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to my breast. The little shoulders heave. Shoulders just like Kemmerichs. I let him be.

The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

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 fro ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever.

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

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 recognised 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.

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

I glance at my boots. They are big and clumsy, the breeches are tucked into them, and standing up one looks well-built and powerful in those great drainpipes. But when we go bathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are no longer soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked; then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. When bathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now -- buy why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesnt want to die. Let him not die!

There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best—in a way that cost them nothing. And that is why they let us down so badly. …in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness the first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces. While they continued to write and talk, we saw the dying. While they taught that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards—they were very free with all these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.