David Salinas

“یکجور و یکنواخت کامیون ها تکان می خورند. یکجور و یکنواخت آن دو نفر داد می زنند و یکجور و یکنواخت باران می بارد. روی سر ما می بارد. روی سر مرده هایی که در میدان جنگ افتاده اند و روی بدن جوان موطلایی و زخم روبازش که برای بدن بچگانه او خیلی مهیب و کشنده است. روی قبر کمریش می بارد. و روی قلب ما.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“State and home country, there’s a difference”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“The room shall speak, it must catch me up and hold me, I want to feel that I belong here, I want to hearken and know when I go back to the front line that the war will sink down, be drowned utterly in the great home-coming tide, know that it will then be past for ever, and not gnaw us continually, that it will have none but an outward power over us…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.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“This habit of getting used to things is the reason that we seem to forget so quickly. The day before yesterday we were still under fire, today we are fooling about, seeing what we can scrounge around here, tomorrow we’ll be back in the trenches. In fact we don’t really forget anything. All the time we are out here the days at the front sink into us like stones the moment they are over, because they are too much for us to think about right away. If we even tried, they would kill us. Because one thing has become clear to me: you can cope with all the horror as long as you simply duck thinking about it – but it will kill you if you try to come to terms with it.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front