Erich Maria Remarque Quotations | Page 2

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.

Come let me kiss you. Life was never so precious as today— when it meant so little.

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.

Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.

But probably that's the way of the world - when we have finally learned something we're too old to apply it - and so it goes, wave after wave, generation after generation. No one learns anything at all from anyone else.

Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.

It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.

Strange how complicated we can make things just to avoid showing what we feel!

Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.