Quote 1
There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that there was only one way of doing well, and that way theirs. And that is just why they let us down so badly. (1.47)
Clothes do not make the man. Most of the authority figures in the novel are painted as one form or another of idiots, sycophants, toadies, and other lower order life forms. Kantorek and Himmelstoss are core figureheads in this arena. But they represent the many others who assume their form. This type of representation is one of the things that makes All Quiet on the Western Front such a great book – it is clearly everyman's story of the war. Think about it: there is nothing particularly special about Paul, other than that he wrote this book. His story is presumably played out thousands of times, just as the passively evil Kantorek and Himmelstoss's stories are repeated many times, in many locales, all around the war effort.
Quote 2
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers – we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals. (2.27)
Many quotes like this pepper the book. There is a conversion that happens when the danger, or kill-zone, line is crossed. Paul sheds his soft, gentle, listening self and adopts a killing, shouting, aggressive demeanor which he continually links to that of a hungry or wounded animal. His identity thus goes back and forth between these two faces.
Quote 3
I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. At that time I still knew nothing about the war, we had only been in quiet sectors. But now I see that I have been crushed without knowing it. I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world. (7.173)
In what ways has Paul been crushed? In light of all of the gruesome circumstances he's had to weather, Paul seems like one tough cookie to us. Then again, we don't really get to meet him until he's already elbow deep in wartime responsibilities. We don't know what Paul was like before the war.
Quote 4
A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannot find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength.
Nothing stirs; listless and wretched, like a condemned man, I sit there and the past withdraws itself. And at the same time I fear to importune it too much, because I do not know what might happen then. I am a soldier, I must cling to that. (7.188)
Is it that the past withdraws itself from Paul or is it that Paul is withdrawing from the past? We get the sense that Paul feels full of guilt at this moment – why does he liken himself to a "condemned man?" The soldierly identity that he must cling to seems quite general when compared with the vivid world of his childhood room.
Quote 5
When we went to the District Commandant to enlist, we were a class of twenty young men, many of whom proudly shaved for the first time before going to the barracks. We had no definite plans for our future. Our thoughts for a career and occupation were as yet of too unpractical a character to furnish any scheme of life. We were still crammed with vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also, an ideal and almost romantic character. (2.4)
Are there any moments in this novel in which war has "an ideal and almost romantic character"?
Quote 6
With our young, awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servant. (2.5)
Some feel that the characters in All Quiet on the Western Front lack depth. Do you agree? Perhaps the characters seem flat because Remarque wants to show us just what it means for a soldier to give up his "personality." When do we really get to know characters in this novel?
Quote 7
We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke into pieces. (1.63)
What does it mean to trust one generation more than another? Did the older generation lie to Paul and his peers? Who in this book belongs to the "older generation"?
Quote 8
I collect the things, untie Kemmerich's identification disc and take it away. The orderly asks about the pay-book. I say that it is probably in the Orderly room, and go. Behind me they are already hauling Franz onto the waterproof sheet. (2.57)
Paul's tone here is dismal, but journalistic. He reports on what he sees, but he doesn't tell us how he feels about what he is seeing. At first he refers to Kemmerich by his last name, and, a few sentences later, he refers to Kemmerich by his first name. Why do you suppose he does this?
Quote 9
That evening's work made us more or less content to leave next morning. And an old buffer was pleased to describe us as "young heroes." (3.82)
What the heck is a "buffer"? To whom or what is Paul referring? Do you consider him and his friends to be "young heroes" for having kicked Himmelstoss's butt?
Quote 10
Perhaps it is our inner and most secret life that shivers and falls on guard. (4.21)
Even though Kat only supposes that there will soon be a bombardment, the soldiers are unnerved. What is this "inner and most secret life" to which Paul refers? Perhaps he is simply referring to the men's collected fears.
Quote 11
"Then you can look out from the window across the fields to the two trees on the horizon. It is the loveliest time of the year now, when the corn ripens; at evening the fields in the sunlight look like mother-of-pearl. And the lane of poplars by the Klosterbach, where we used to catch sticklebacks! You can build an aquarium again and keep fish in it, and you can go out without asking anyone, you can even play the piano if you want to." (2.41)
Paul tries to lure Kemmerich with visions of life beyond the war, all of which have something to do with nature. To us, there's something startling about the idea of an aquarium with fish in it, especially in the context of WWI. Perhaps it is simply that aquariums are so peaceful and contained, or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, with the exception of a river or two, there are no bodies of water in the world of this novel.
Quote 12
Their stillness is the reason why these memories of former times do not awaken desire so much as the sorrow – a strange, inapprehensible melancholy. Once we had such desires – but they return not. They are past, they belong to another world that is gone from us. (6.100)
The soldiers are losing their dreams and hopes, and their memories only make them sadder. But why? What are the "desires" that Paul refers to in this passage?
Quote 13
I think of the picture of the girl on the poster and, for a moment, believe that my life depends on winning her. And if I press ever deeper into the arms that embrace me, perhaps a miracle may happen. (7.66)
Why does that poster stir Paul so deeply? Is there any moment in the book in which Paul wants something as much as he wants to win over the woman in the poster? What does she represent to him?
Quote 14
Yes, the club chairs with red plush. In the evening, we used to sit in them like lords, and intended later on to let them out by the hour. One cigarette per hour. It might have turned into a regular business, a real good living. (10.66)
The paradise that Paul and his fellow soldiers create in the abandoned town fills us with both happiness and unease. It's almost too good to be true, you know? This moment in the novel feels almost like a dream, as though the men were hallucinating, and yet we can't help but breathe a sigh of relief for the soldiers who've endured much.
Quote 15
I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can bring me nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has born me through these years is still in my hands and eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me. (12.10)
At this point, Paul seems to no longer have any dreams, hopes, or plans. His enemy is his own life, which, though he tries to protect it, "will seek its own way out."
Quote 16
But on the last day an astonishing number of English field guns opened up on us with high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered heavily and came back only eighty strong. (1.4)
About 10 million soldiers died over the course of World War I, the most expensive war the world had yet known. Check out Shmoop History: "World War I" for more information.
Quote 17
Katczinsky is right when he says it would not be such a bad war if only one could get a little more sleep. In the line we have next to none, and fourteen days is a long time at one stretch. (1.5)
How do these soldiers keep sane and how do they maintain their energy without sleep and with very little food? Do you agree with Kat that the war wouldn't be so bad if the soldiers were able to sleep more?
Quote 18
The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavor to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. (1.42)
Our narrator speaks so politely about fart jokes! We almost have to read this part three times in order to understand what he's talking about. Why do you think soldiers are "on friendlier terms" with their intestines?
Quote 19
Because he could not see, and was mad with pain, he failed to keep under cover, and so was shot down before anyone could go and fetch him. (1.60)
Why is it significant that Joseph Behm (the class clown and rabble-rouser who almost didn't follow the trend and join the army) is among the first to fall?
Quote 20
My thoughts become confused. This atmosphere of carbolic and gangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates. (2.37)
War attacks all of the senses; it's in the air the soldiers breathe, in the sounds of suffering they hear, in the rough dirt and splinters they feel in the trenches. So much of the novel has to do with sensory experiences – both the good and the bad. Here, Paul is visiting a hospital, and the smell of it overwhelms him. However, much later on, he and his comrades enjoy delicious roasted pig and freshly brewed coffee. Paul descriptions hinge on moments in which the senses are stirred.