Quotes from books
(page 5)

We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. 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 my enemy?

Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

I did not want to think so much about her. I wanted to take her as an unexpected, delightful gift, that had come and would go again — nothing more. I meant not to give room to the thought that it could ever be more. I knew too well that all love has the desire for eternity and that therein lies its eternal torment. Nothing lasts. Nothing.

Erich Maria Remarque, "Three Comrades"

It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.

Erich Maria Remarque, "Three Comrades"

Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.

Erich Maria Remarque, "Arch of Triumph"

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.

Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.

Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

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.

Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

Mothers are all slightly insane.

J. D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye"

Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead. After that my own rule is to let everything alone.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

The world is full of people running.

Elizabeth Swados, "Runaways"

Religion is the opiate of the masses.

Karl Marx, "Comunist Manifesto"

I like too many things and get all confused and hung up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

Jack Kerouac, "On The Road"

Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.

Richard Bach, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

You're never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true.

Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "Land of People"

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince"