# Erich Maria Remarque - Quotes: 14 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque ## Books - [All Quiet on the Western Front](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front.md) — 14 quotes ## Recently added quotes > This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/this-book-is.md) > 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 as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more. p. 291 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/no-we-are.md) > It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is often brought on by small men. They are so much more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows. p. 10 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/it-is-very.md) > I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form. All other expressions live in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;—it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct—it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought—it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude—it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. p. 273 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/i-often-sit.md) > 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. p. 296 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/he-fell-in-october.md) > 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. p. 206 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/tjaden-reappears-he-is-still.md) > We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. 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. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war. p. 88 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/we-are-not.md) > A hospital alone shows what war is. p. 263 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/a-hospital-alone.md) > It is when one is alone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her. p. 189 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/it-is-when.md) > 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 might have been smashed to atoms, and in the open may survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier survives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck. p. 101 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/it-is-just.md) > I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me. p. 295 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/i-am-very.md) > A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. p. 193 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/a-word-of-command.md)