We March Up, Moody Or Good-tempered Soldiers

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.

To Me The Front Is A Mysterious Whirlpool. Though I Am In Still Water Far Away From Its Centre, I Feel The Whirl Of The Vortex Sucking Me Slowly, Irresistibly, Inescapably Into Itself.

I Am Often On Guard Over The Russians. In The Darkness One Sees Their Forms Move Like Stick Storks, Like Great Birds. They Come Close Up To The Wire Fence And Lean Their Faces Against It. Their Fingers Hook Round The Mesh.

No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances.

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