A Farewell to Arms

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

Life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose.

'Darling, would you like to grow a beard?'

'Would you like me to?'

'It might be fun. I'd like to see you with a beard.'

'All right. I'll grow one. I'll start now this minute. It's a good idea. It will give me something to do.'

You're my religion. You're all I've got.

I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another's company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.

All thinking men are atheists.

That is all there is to the story. Catherine died and you will die and I will die and that is all I can promise you.

I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.