All Quiet On The Western Front.

I Wandered Through The Streets Thinking Of All The Things I Might Have Said And Might Have Done Had I Been Other Than I Was.

The Room Shall Speak, It Must Catch Me Up And Hold Me, I Want To Feel That I Belong Here, I Want To Hearken And Know When I Go Back To The Front Line That The War Will Sink Down, Be Drowned Utterly In The Great Home-coming Tide, Know That It Will Then Be Past For Ever, And Not Gnaw Us Continually, That It Will Have None But An Outward Power Over Us...nothing Stirs; Listless And Wretched, Like A Condemned Man, I Sit There And The Past Withdraws Itself. And At The Same Time I Fear To Importune It Too Much, Because I Do Not Know What Might Happen Then. I Am A Soldier, I Must Cling To That.

How Senseless Is Everything That Can Ever Be Written, Done, Or Thought, When Such Things Are Possible. It Must Be All Lies And Of No Account When The Culture Of A Thousand Years Could Not Prevent This Stream Of Blood Being Poured Out, These Torture-chambers In Their Hundreds Of Thousands. A Hospital Alone Shows What War Is.

For A Moment I Had A Strange Intuition That Just This, And In A Real, Profound Sense, Is Life; And Perhaps Happiness Even - Love With A Mixture Of Sadness, Reverence, And Silent Knowledge.

It's All Rot That They Put In The War-news About The Good Humour Of The Troops, How They Are Arranging Dances Almost Before They Are Out Of The Front-line. We Don't Act Like That Because We Are In A Good Humour: We Are In A Good Humour Because Otherwise We Should Go To Pieces.