Our Knowledge Of Life Is Limited To

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 May Be Smashed To Atoms And In The Open May Survive Ten Hour's Bombardment Unscratched. No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances. But Every Soldier Believes In Chance And Trusts His Luck.

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." -all Quiet On The Western Front, Chapter 12

You May Turn Into An Archangel, A Fool, Or A Criminal—no One Will See It. But When A Button Is Missing—everyone Sees That.

At School Nobody Ever Taught Us How To Light A Cigarette In A Storm Of Rain, Nor How A Fire Could Be Made With Wet Wood-nor That It Is Best To Stick A Bayonet In The Belly Because There It Doesn't Get Jammed, As It Does In The Ribs.

We Lie Under The Network Of Arching Shells And Live In A Suspense Of Uncertainty. If A Shot Comes, We Can Duck, That Is All; We Neither Know Nor Can Determine Where It Will Fall." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 6