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
museums perfect
Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.
waiting terrible
It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.
world moments cigarette
Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.
simple secret important
Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.
mankind prize
... but that's what mankind is like: they only prize what they no longer possess.
kissing today littles
Come let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as today— when it meant so little.
years silence sorrow
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.
settling
Anything you can settle with money is cheap.
mirrors giving behinds
Mirrors are there when we are and yet they never give anything back to us but our own image. Never, never shall we know what they are when they are alone or what is behind them.
morning wall eye
We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.
veterans-day believe soldier
No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.
waiting going-away littles
I, too, am going to go away soon,' she says, 'I am weary and weary of my weariness. Everything is beginning to be a little empty and full of leave-taking and melancholy and waiting.
feelings want might
We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamental enough in peace-time, would be out of place here.
stars dark night
The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.