Flotsam Quotes

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“A man can gasp out his life beside you-and you feel none of it. Pity, Sympathy, sure-but you don't feel the pain. Your belly is whole and that's what counts. A half-yard away someone's world is snuffled out in roaring agony-and you feel nothing. That's the misery of the world.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“A crude age. Peace is stabilized with cannon and bombers, humanity with concentration camps and pogroms. We're living in a time when all standards are turned upside-down, Kern. Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“The more primitive a man is the better he believes himself to be.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Suddenly he knew all the things he should have said.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“The heroes of ancient Greece wept more often than our silly, sentimental modern women. They knew it did no good to hold it back. Our ideal is the impassive courage of a statue. Unnecessary. Be sad and then you'll soon be over it.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Die Angst am Tage ist vernünftig; die Angst der Nacht ist ohne Grenzen.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“The music surged down the stairs like a flashing stream—it gathered in the corridor and burst like a waterfall through the wide entry doors. It splashed over a small, lonely figure crouching on the lowest step, dark and colorless like an un-moving lump of black, a little hillock with mad, unresting eyes. It was the old man who had freed himself with such difficulty from the unrelenting window. He crouched in the corner, lost and done for, with bowed shoulders and knees drawn high, as though he would never rise again—and over him, and away in gay and flashing cascades, the music splashed and danced, strong, pitiless, unceasing as life itself.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“On the wall above the cheese was an inscription in pencil by a former inmate of the cell: “There’s an end to everything, even a life sentence.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“He looked around. “Well-known faces,” he said. “Those who belong nowhere meet each other everywhere. Strange stories!… Steiner, where were we the last time? In Vienna, right! And Marill? In Brissago, and later in Locarno in the police station, wasn’t that it? Why, there’s Klassmann too, the Sherlock Holmes of Zürich. Yes, my memory’s still functioning fairly well. And Waser! Brose! And Kern from Czecho! Meyer, the friend of carabinieri in Palanza! God yes, children, the good old times! Now things are no longer the same. My legs don’t want to go on.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Just look at its quality; for five years at a time you don’t even have to lift the hood. Luxury, dear Waser! Only the Americans really understand luxury. The motor is sleek and noiseless, you can’t even hear it.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“The big waiting room of the Committee for the Aid of Refugees was overcrowded with people. But strangely enough it gave the impression of being empty. The people stood and sat in the half-darkness like shadows. Almost no one spoke. Each of them had told and repeated a hundred times all the facts that concerned him. Now there was only one thing left to do—wait. This was the last barrier against despair.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“And better than being dead.” “I don’t know about being dead. But better than dying, anyhow. So long, Baby.” “So long, Steiner.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam

“Kern felt the cold steel on his wrists. It was the first time in his life he had been fettered. The steel rings didn’t hinder him much in walking. But it seemed to him that they had shackled more than just his hands.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Flotsam