Most scenes together: Paul Bäumer & Sergeant Stanislas "Kat" Katczinsky (3), Paul Bäumer & Tjaden (2)
You see, we haven't eaten since breakfast, we thought maybe you could tell us what we ought to do about it.
Eat without further delay. It's a bad town to bring an appetite to, soldier. We've been here since yesterday morning and we've been living on a bale of hay and razor blades.
Dead. He's dead.
Why did you risk your life bringing him in?
But it's Behm, my friend.
It's a corpse, no matter whose it is. Now, don't any of ya ever do that again.
That cannon shell you don't have to pay much attention to. Those big fellas just make a lot of noise and land about five miles behind the line. The things we've got to watch out for are them black ones. They don't give you much warning... Mother Earth — press yourselves down upon her! Bury yourselves deep into her! Just keep your eyes on me. When you see me flop, you flop, only try to beat me to it.
Now you're gonna see some shell fire, and you're gonna be scared... [a shell explodes nearby and they all duck for cover; one terrified recruit soils his pants] Never mind. It's happened to better men than you. And it's happened to me. When we come back, I'll get you all some nice, clean underwear!
There's 80 of us left. The rest is in dressing stations or pushing up daisies.
There used to be some food in the sawdust. Now it's all sawdust. No joke either.
Sometime I'm gonna take one of you volunteers apart — find out what makes you leave school and join the army. Hey, this is no parade ground.
I saw him die. I didn't know what it was like to die before! And then, then I came outside and it felt so good to be alive, that I started in to walk fast. I began to think of the strangest things like bein' out in the fields, things like that. You know — girls. Then it felt as if there were something electric running from the ground up through me. And I started. And I began to run hard and I passed soldiers, and I heard voices calling to me, and I ran and I ran, and I felt as if I couldn't breathe enough air into me. And now I'm hungry.
Replacements are all like that. Not even old enough to carry a pack. All they know how to do is die.
Out of 20, three are officers, nine dead, Müller and three others wounded, and one in the mad house. We'll all be dead someday so let's forget it.
If he were out, the war would be over. You remember what he always said: 'They're savin' him for the last.'
Oh God. This is Franz Kemmerich, only 19 years old. He doesn't want to die. Please don't let him die.
Here is one of the first to go, a lad who sat before me on these very benches who gave up all to serve in the first year of the war. One of the iron youth who have made Germany invincible in the field. Look at him, sturdy and bronze and clear-eyed, the kind of soldier every one of you should envy.
I say "You must [get out of this hollow], it is your comrades, it is not and idiotic command," and again: "What does it matter to me, I have only one life to lose—"
