All Quiet on the Western Front

by Erich Maria Remarque

There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best—in a way that cost them nothing.

His features have become uncertain and faint, like a photographic plate from which two pictures have been taken.

An hour later we reach our lorries and climb in. There is more room now than there was.

Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades—words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.

We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole;