Quotes from Three Comrades

“It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Life is a disease, brother, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying - a little shove toward the end.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“To forget is the secret of eternal youth. One grows old only through memory. There's much too little forgetting.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Sometimes I used to think that one day i should wake up, and all that had been would be over. forgotten, sunk, drowned. Nothing was sure - not even memory.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Modesty and conscientiousness receive their reward only in novels. In life they are exploited and then shoved aside.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“It was a melancholy secret that reality can arouse desires but never satisfy them.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“For a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real, profound sense, is life; and perhaps happiness even - love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“- Ты хочешь знать, как быть, если сделал что-то не так? Отвечаю, детка: никогда не проси прощения. Ничего не говори. Посылай цветы. Без писем. Только цветы. Они покрывают все. Даже могилы.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“- Никогда, Робби, не стремись знать слишком много! Чем меньше знаешь, тем проще живется. Знание делает человека свободным, но и несчастным. Давай выпьем за наивность, за глупость и все, что к ним относится - за любовь, за веру в будущее, за мечты о счастье - за божественную глупость, за потерянный рай...”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“It's no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“I felt the first soft glow of intoxication that makes the blood warmer and spreads an illusion of adventure over uncertainty.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Е да, който е сам, не може да бъде изоставен. Но понякога, вечер, изкуствената черупка се пука, животът се превръща в някаква хълцаща, натрапчива мелодия, някакъв вихър от див копнеж, от жажда, тъга и надежда да се измъкнеш от безмисления шемет, да се измъкнеш от безмисленото еднозвучно свирене на тази вечна латерна, все едно накъде ще поемеш. Ах, тази жалка потребност от малко топлота, не можеха ли да я дадат две ръце и едно сведено над теб лице? Или това бе само отказ, бягство? Имаше ли нещо друго освен самотата? ”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Nothing is the mirror in which you see the world.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“I've not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just this lilac here makes me happy.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Then when I am sad and understand nothing anymore, I say to myself that it's better to die while you still want to live, than to die and want to die.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Mark this one thing my boy: never, never, never can a man make himself ridiculous in the eyes of a woman by anything he may do on her account. Not even by the most childish performances. Do anything you like, stand on your head, talk the most utter twaddle, swank like a peacock, sing under her window - anything at all but one thing: don't be matter of fact, don't be sensible.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Little by little things began to assume a new aspect. The sense of insecurity vanished, words came of themselves, I was no longer so painfully conscious of everything I said. I drank on and felt the great soft wave approach and embrace me; the dark hour began to fill with pictures and stealthily the noiseless procession of dreams appeared again superimposed on the dreary, grey landscape of existence.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Extraordinary creatures you young people are, altogether. The past you hate, the present you despise, and the future is a matter of indifference. How do you suppose that can lead to any good end?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Haven't you ever observed how we live in an age of self-persecution? What a lot of things there are one might do that one doesn't - and yet why, God only knows. Work has become so tremendously important to-day, because so many have none, I suppose, that it kills everything else... Work, work, work . . . an abominable obsession - and always under the illusion it will be different later. And it never is different. Queer, isn't it, that anyone should do that with his life?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Night is nature's protest against the leprosy of civilization, Gottfried. No decent man can withstand it for long. He begins to notice that he has been turned out of the silent company of the trees, the animals, the stars, and unconscious life.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Human beings are a much worse poison than schnapps or tobacco".”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Ligh doesn't shine in the light; it shines in the dark.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

“Nie entschuldigen, Baby. Nie reden. Blumen schicken. Ohne Brief. Nur Blumen. Die decken alles zu. Sogar Gräber.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades

About the author

Popular quotes

“I run back to the peephole and see all three of them as they walk past with these things in their hands, I can hear the woman who I assume is their mother telling them a joke. I know the joke, but when I first heard it a long time ago, it didn't make me laugh. When she's done, I can hear the kids laughing. The joke still doesn't make me laugh, what makes me laugh are the laughing kids. That high pitched fast paced laugh that kids have. It's not until we get older that this laugh becomes low and drawn out. Trying to figure out when it's appropriate to laugh and when it's not.”
― quote from Anthology Complex

“The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from Corazón de tinta

“I couldn’t comprehend why she still hadn’t stopped him because it’s clearly every mother’s responsibility to protect her children. After all, that’s the trust that bonds a mother and her child together, forever”
― Veronika Gasparyan, quote from Mother at Seven: The Shocking True Story of an Armenian Girl's Stolen Childhood and Her Family's Unspeakable, Cruel Betrayal

“St. Thomas Aquinas taught that water has been a natural sacrament since the dawn of creation. In the age of nature—from Adam through the patriarchs—water refreshed and cleansed humankind.”
― Scott Hahn, quote from Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots

“My girl, we are on the cusp of a modern age-and with it comes modern medicine." He dug a fat hand through his bag and removed a small bottle. "Take this laudanum, for example. Wonderful stuff! I have a few drops in my tea each morning to calm the nerves.”
― Jonathan Auxier, quote from The Night Gardener

Interesting books

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.