The Wisest Were Just The Poor And

Life Is A Disease, Brother, And Death Begins Already At Birth. Every Breath, Every Heartbeat, Is A Moment Of Dying - A Little Shove Toward The End.

The Crowd, Still Shouting, Gives Way Before Us. We Plough Our Way Through. Women Hold Their Aprons Over Their Faces And Go Stumbling Away. A Roar Of Fury Goes Up. A Wounded Man Is Being Carried Off.

I Had The Feeling Of Slipping Down A Smooth Bottomless Pit. It Had Nothing To Do With Breuer And The People. It Had Nothing To Do With Pat Even. It Was The Melancholy Secret That Reality Can Arouse Desires But Never Satisfy Them; That Love Begins With A Human Being But Does Not End In Him; And That Everything Can Be There: A Human Being, Love, Happiness, Life — And That Yet In Some Terrible Way It Is Always Too Little, And Grows Ever Less The More It Seems.

The Storm Lashes Us, Out Of The Confusion Of Grey And Yellow The Hail Of Splinters Whips Forth The Childlike Cries Of The Wounded, And In The Night Shattered Life Groans Painfully Into Silence. Our Hands Are Earth, Our Bodies Clay And Our Eyes Pools Of Rain. We Do Not Know Whether We Are Still Alive.

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