Reacting to Survive

“Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line. . . so we turn into wags and loafers when we are resting . . . We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they may be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out [...]

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The Value of a Life

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“I wage a wild and senseless fight, I [...]

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A New Life

 
            “We could never regain the old intimacy with those scenes. It was not any recognition of their beauty and their significance that attracted us, but with the communion, the feeling of a comradeship with the things and events of our existence, which cut us off and made the world of our parents a thing [...]

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Returning Home

“We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;– the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.” (294)
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the above passage is stated after all of [...]

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Two Parts of a Human Mind

“My state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts.  What would his wife look like? Like the little brunette on the other side of the canal? Does she belong to me now? Perhaps by this act she becomes mine” (Remarque 222).
In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, a German soldier, [...]

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A Day One Pig Would Die

“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.”(Remargue 296)
 
These lines are the last lines of the book.  In the lines it is explained that [...]

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The Eyes

            The eyes follow me. I am powerless to move so long as they are there.  (219)
 
 
            Paul freely admits that he and his comrades become a different type of person when faced with combat. They become savage, killing machines. But in a few instance throughout the novel, Paul finds that he can not kill [...]

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The Unknown

“Through our years, our business has been killing; – it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?” (264).

In this passage from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a German soldier [...]

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The Fear of Surviving

“Through the years our business has been killing;–it was our first calling in life.  Our knowledge of life is limited to death.  What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?” (Remarque 264)
This quotation from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front characterizes one of Paul Baumer’s greatest fears.  Paul feels [...]

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The Realization of the Enemy

 
“Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony- forgive me, comrade; how could you be [...]

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