Erich Maria Remarque: Thing

“That is the remarkable thing about drinking: it brings people together so quickly, but between night and morning it sets an interval again of years.”

“They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.”

“It is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them.”

“Keep things at arm's length… If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.”

“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.”

“I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.”

“The things men did or felt they had to do.”

“It's not much. You begin by thinking there is something extraordinary about it. But you'll find out, when you've been out in the world a while longer, unhappiness is the commonest thing there is.”

“I've not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just this lilac here makes me happy.”