Quotes from Erich Maria Remarque

Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what can possibly become of us?

I wanted to say something, but I could not. It is difficult to find words when one really has something to say. And even if one knows the right words, then one is ashamed to say them. All these words belong to other, earlier centuries. Our time has not the words yet to express its feelings. We can only be offhand—anything else rings false.

My rage outweighs my shame, as always happens when one is really ashamed and knows he ought to be.

The tension has worn us out. It is a deadly tension that feels as if a jagged knife blade is being scraped along the spine. Our legs won't function, our hands are trembling and our bodies are like thin membranes stretched over barely repressed madness, holding in what would otherwise be an unrestrained outburst of endless scream.s. We have no flesh, no muscle now

šiaip ar taip, aš jau sp?jau štai k? pasteb?ti: siaub? galima pakelti, kol tu pasiduodi savo likimui, bet jis tave nužudo, jeigu tik imi apie j? galvoti.

Those are for us,' growls Detering. 'Don't talk rubbish,' Kat snaps back at him. 'You'll be lucky to get a coffin at all,' grins Tjaden, 'they'll just use a tarpaulin to wrap up that target-practice dummy you call a body, you wait and see.

Ich bin jung, ich bin zwanzig Jahre alt; aber ich kenne vom Leben nichts anderes als die Verzweiflung, den Tod, die Angst und die Verkettung sinnlosester Oberflächlichkeit mit einem Abgrund des Leidens. Ich sehe, dass Völker gegeneinander getrieben werden und sich schweigend, unwissend, töricht, gehorsam, unschuldig töten.

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.

Kõik, mida rahaga saab joonde ajada, on odavalt saadud.

It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men. They are so much more energetic and compromising than the big fellows.

What has that to do with love?" "A great deal. It takes care of its continuance. Otherwise we would love once only and reject everything else later. But as it is, the remnant of desire for the man one leaves behind, or by whom one is left behind, becomes the halo around the head of the new one. To have lost someone before in itself gives the new one a certain romantic glamour. The hallowed old illusion.

Love, he thought. That too is love. The old miracle. It not only casts a rainbow of dreams against the gray sky of facts—it also sheds romantic light upon a heap of dung—a miracle and a mad mockery. Suddenly he had the strange feeling of having become, in a remote way, an accomplice.

I dislike his talk; it goes against my grain to hear him speak so contemptuously of cobblers. They made as good soldiers as the finer folk, anyway. Adolf Bethke was a cobbler, for that matter,--and he knew a sight more about war than a good many majors. It was the man that counted with us, not his occupation.

I hate it when people mix things, I hate the cowlike yearning toward one another while the beauty and the power of a great work breaks over one; I hate the swimming looks of lovers, the foolish blissful cuddling, the indecent sheepish happiness that can never rise above itself; I hate all the talk of becoming one through love;

The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavor to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. It is impossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly and pithily.

??????? ????? ??????????? ??????? ?? ?????. ??? — ???????? ??????? ??????????. Mitleid ist der nutzloseste Artikel, den es auf der Welt gibt«, sagte ich ärgerlich.»Es ist die Kehrseite der Schadenfreude, das sollten Sie wissen.«

Trommelfeuer, Sperrfeuer, Gardinenfeuer, Minen, Gas, Tanks, Maschinengewehre, Handgranaten - Worte, Worte aber sie umfassen das Grauen der Welt.

We agree that it's the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and to others less. It is the common fate of our generation.

I want to feel that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books. The breath of desire that then arose from the coloured backs of the books, shall fill me again, melt the heavy dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back again the lost eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait.

Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve, I breathe. The gas still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows. Like a big, soft jellyfish it floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely.

The heroes of ancient Greece wept more often than our silly, sentimental modern women. They knew it did no good to hold it back. Our ideal is the impassive courage of a statue. Unnecessary. Be sad and then you'll soon be over it.

Ma mõtlesin, et elame konservide ajastul.'' ''Konservide? Kuidas nii?'' Ravic osutas ajalehtedele. ''Meil pole enam tarvis mõtelda. Kõik on ette mõeldud, ette mälutud, ette tunnetatud. Konservid. Jääb üle ainult avada. Kolm korda päevas koju kätte toimetatud. Midagi pole enam tarvis ise külvata, kasvatada, pole tarvis küsimuste, kahtluste ja igatsuste tulel keeta. Konservid.

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. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but 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.

Wie sinnlos ist alles, was je geschrieben, getan, gedacht wurde, wenn so etwas möglich ist! Es muß alles gelogen und belanglos sein, wenn die Kultur von Jahrtausenden nicht einmal verhindern konnte, daß diese Ströme von Blut vergossen wurden.