Excerpt from "No War on the Western Front"

>> Educators' feelings are often packed in the pockets of their vests, ready to be picked up and peddled on time.

>> While they were still writing and speaking, we had seen field hospitals and death—and when they thought allegiance to the nation was the greatest cause, we already knew that the fear of death was even stronger. Nevertheless, we will never defect, become deserters, become cowards — words they come to hand — and we love our country as much as they do. Every time we attacked, we bravely rushed forward – but we now know right from wrong. We learned to observe. We are suddenly horribly lonely – and we will continue to be alone.

>> The earth means no more to anyone than to soldiers. When the soldiers clung to the earth for a long time and forcefully, when the fierce fire terrified them so much that they buried their faces and limbs deep into the earth, the earth was their only friend, their brother, their mother. Their horrors and cries tossed through the silence and silence of the earth. The earth accepted them, released them, let them run for another ten seconds, lived another ten seconds, and caught them again. Often, they return to the earth eternally.

>> At this very moment, the darkness became crazy. It was raging and roaring. Darker than night, hunched over huge backs, roared at us, over our heads.

>> Here, we can't afford to be emotional. While peacetime sentiment may be an embellishment, here it is a mistake

>> I can't move any further. Mom, Mom, Paul is back.

>> a person who is accustomed to death can no longer understand why there is so much pain just because a person dies.

>> a single command can turn these silent figures into our enemies, or into our friends. On a certain table was a document signed by someone we had no idea about. Thus the sin that should have been despised and punished by the world has become our supreme goal for many years.

>> If thousands of years of civilization simply cannot stop the flow of blood and the painful imprisonment, then everything is a lie and does not matter. Only the field hospitals indicate what war is.

Anything that represents life is a luxury

> his misfortune was that he saw a cherry tree in a garden.

>> The wind of hope blows through the charred fields. The frenzied impulses of anxiety and disappointment, the creepy, inexplicable wonders of the most painful of death: Why? Why not end yet? Why are there rumors of the end circulating?

>> Hope is too strong to be completely cleared without an explosion.

>> He was killed in October 1918. On that day, the entire front line was silent. There is only one record in the war report of the army headquarters: there is no war on the Western Front.

>> We are too young to realize that there is anything important besides what we can understand at our age, and we don't take to heart what rules are in our hearts.