No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances. But

Someone Said To Me Once That A Cigarette At The Right Moment Is Better Than All The Ideals In The World.

With Blinded Eyes I Stared At The Sky, This Grey, Endless Sky Of A Crazy God, Who Had Made Life And Death For His Amusement.

I Did Not Want To Think So Much About Her. I Wanted To Take Her As An Unexpected, Delightful Gift, That Had Come And Would Go Again — Nothing More. I Meant Not To Give Room To The Thought That It Could Ever Be More. I Knew Too Well That All Love Has The Desire For Eternity And That Therein Lies Its Eternal Torment. Nothing Lasts. Nothing.

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.

We Lie Under The Network Of Arching Shells And Live In A Suspense Of Uncertainty. If A Shot Comes, We Can Duck, That Is All; We Neither Know Nor Can Determine Where It Will Fall." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 6