Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque, born Erich Paul Remark, was a German novelist who created many works about the terror of war. His best known novel All Quiet on the Western Front, about German soldiers in the First World War, was made into an Oscar-winning movie. His book made him an enemy of the Nazis, who burned many of his works...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth22 June 1898
CountryGermany
years purpose march
The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us:—against whom, against whom?
ideas mind quiet
The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom.
skins someone-you-love comfort
What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love!
mirrors world
Nothing is the mirror in which you see the world.
voice comforting comrade
They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.
missing may fool
You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal—no one will see it. But when a button is missing—everyone sees that.
morning drinking night
That is the remarkable thing about drinking: it brings people together so quickly, but between night and morning it sets an interval again of years.
lonely loneliness moon
There was only the broad square with the scattered dim moons of the street lamps and with the monumental stone arch which receded into the mist as though it would prop up the melancholy sky and protect beneath itself the faint lonely flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which looked like the last grave of mankind in the midst of night and loneliness.
teacher home men
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 flavour 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. Our families and our teachers will be shocked when we go home, but here it is the universal language.
brain
Katczinsky says it is all to do with education - it softens the brain.
ideas important astonishment
We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thing...not ideas, but the system; not freedom, but drill. We had joined up with enthusiasm and with good will; but they did everything to knock that out of us.
fire fields clay
Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days;--when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without.
voice darkness stand-by-me
I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;--I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life...I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me.
years calling firsts
Through the years our business has been killing;-it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of lif eis limited to death.