Erich Maria Remarque quotes - page 3

Keep things at arm's length... If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to. (Erich Maria Remarque)
Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
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. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
... but that's what mankind is like: they only prize what they no longer possess. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
No, we are not related. No, we are not related. Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony - Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
It's no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
I've not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just this lilac here makes me happy. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their forms move like stick storks, like great birds. They come close up to the wire fence and lean their faces against it. Their fingers hook round the mesh. (Erich Maria Remarque)
He 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. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hour's bombardment unscratched. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, then they are if they were free. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
They are more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are. But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
Love should not be polluted with friendship. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
It is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
I am a modern man with a strong tendency to self-destruction. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque
I don't want to get old.” "You won't get old. Life will pass over your face, that will be all, and it will become more beautiful. One is old only when one no longer feels.” "No. When one no longer loves. (Erich Maria Remarque)
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 don't 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 don't mean that at all. One people offends the other-' 'Then I haven't any business here at all,' replies Tjaden, '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 Tjaden, and we all laugh. View quote
Erich Maria Remarque