Quotes about War

Tjaden: Me and the Kaiser, we are both fighting. The only difference is the Kaiser isn't here!

- Slim Summerville (as Tjaden) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Paul Bäumer: And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death.

- Lew Ayres (as Paul) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Paul Bäumer: War isn't the way it looks back here.

- Lew Ayres (as Paul) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Albert Kropp: [speaking of school] They never taught us really useful like how to light a cigarette in the wind, or make a fire out of wet wood, or bayonet a man in the belly instead of the ribs where it gets jammed.

- William Bakewell (as Albert) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Albert Kropp: I think it's more a kind of fever. Nobody wants it in particular, and then all at once, there it is. We didn't want it. The English didn't want it. And here we are fighting.

- William Bakewell (as Albert) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Albert Kropp: Ah, the French certainly deserve to be punished for starting this war.
Detering: Everybody says it's somebody else.
Tjaden: Well. how do they start a war?
Albert Kropp: Well, one country offends another.
Tjaden: How could one country offend another? You mean there's a mountain over in Germany gets mad at a field over in France?
[Everyone laughs]
Albert Kropp: Well, stupid, one people offends another.
Tjaden: Oh, well, if that's it, I shouldn't be here at all. I don't feel offended.
Katczinsky: It don't apply to tramps like you.
Tjaden: Good. Then I could be goin' home right away.
Paul Bäumer: Ah, you just try it.

- Louis Wolheim (as Kat) in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Homer Parrish: I didn't see much of the war... I was stationed in a repair shop below decks. Oh, I was in plenty of battles, but I never saw a Jap or heard a shell coming at me. When we were sunk, all I know is there was a lot of fire and explosions. And I was ordered topsides and overboard. And I was burned. When I came to, I was on a cruiser. My hands were off. After that, I had it easy... That's what I said. They took care of me fine. They trained me to use these things. I can dial telephones, I can drive a car, I can even put nickels in the jukebox. I'm all right, but... well, you see, I've got a girl.

- Harold Russell (as Homer Parrish) in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Fred Derry: I dreamed I was gonna have my own home. Just a nice little house for my wife and me out in the country... in the suburbs anyway. That's the cock-eyed kind of dream you have when you're overseas.
Peggy Stephenson: You don't have to be overseas to have dreams like that.
Fred Derry: Yeah. You can get crazy ideas right here at home.

- Dana Andrews (as Fred Derry) in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Fred Derry: How long since you been home?
Al Stephenson: Oh, a couple-a centuries.

- Fredric March (as Al Stephenson) in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

[denying an official of the German National Bank entrance to the casino]
Rick: Your cash is good at the bar.
Banker: What? Do you know who I am?
Rick: I do. You're lucky the *bar's* open to you.

- Humphrey Bogart (as Rick Blaine) in Casablanca (1942)