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We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.

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A man dreams of a miracle and wakes up to loaves of bread.

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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 ...more

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And in the night you realize, when you wake out of a dream, overcome and captivated by the enchantment of visions that crowd in on each other, just ho...more

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Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like...more

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And be very careful at the front, Paul.”Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are!

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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, o...more

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We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thi...more

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we developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity, which grew, on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced - comradeship in arms.

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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...more

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And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then sha...more

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There had never been any more between us thanchance had brought. But perhaps that makes a greater indebtednessand binds closer than much else