Quotes from Flotsam

Erich Maria Remarque ·  448 pages

Rating: (1.1K votes)


“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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from Flotsam



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


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


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



About the author

Erich Maria Remarque
Born place: in Osnabrück, Germany
Born date June 22, 1898
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Let me love you, but don't love me back. Do love me and lt me hate you for a while. Let me feel like I have some control, because I know I never do.”
― Ann Brashares, quote from The Last Summer (of You and Me)


“You know that movie, where the little boy says 'I see dead people'?

The Sixth Sense.

Well, I see them all the time, and I'm getting tired of it. That's what's ruined my mood. Here it is, almost Christmas, and I didn't even think about putting up a tree, because I'm still seeing the autopsy lab in my head. I'm still smelling it on my hands. I come home on a day like this, after two postmortems, and I can't think about cooking dinner. I can't even look at a piece of meat without thinking of muscle fibers. All I can deal with is a cocktail. And then I pour the drink and smell the alcohol, and suddenly there I am, back in the lab. Alcohol, formalin, they both have that same sharp smell.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Sinner


“If his Russian was music, his English was murder.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from Pnin


“He who fight monsters must take care that he doesn't become one himself.”
― Anthony Horowitz, quote from Scorpia Rising


“Sneetches" was what we called the in-crowd at school, the haves as opposed to the have-nots. We named them from a Dr. Suess story in which the Star-Belly Sneetches, who were born with a green star on their bellies, thought they were better than all those who had no green star- or in this case green money.”
― Gwen Hayes, quote from Falling Under


Interesting books

Martin Chuzzlewit
(13.1K)
Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
Son of a Witch
(54.5K)
Son of a Witch
by Gregory Maguire
Tick Tock
(28.6K)
Tick Tock
by Dean Koontz
Second Chance Summer
(37.1K)
Second Chance Summer
by Morgan Matson
Oh. My. Gods.
(14.4K)
Oh. My. Gods.
by Tera Lynn Childs
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
(34.9K)
The Secret Diary of...
by Sue Townsend

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.