“For every death is a simplification of existence for the others, removes the necessity to show gratitude, the obligation to pay visits.”

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in hi...”

“Real life, life finally uncovered and clarified, the only life in consequence lived to the full, is literature. Life in this sense dwells within all ordinary people as much as the artist. But they ...”

“Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the ...”

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself.”

“ it would even be inexact to say that I thought of those who read it as readers of my book. Because they were not, as I saw it, my readers. More exactly they were readers of themselves, my book bei...”

“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”

“They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king.”

“A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.”

“I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.”

“I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting (WWI) to those who want the war to go on forever. Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth an...”

“In a war, you wield every weapon you have, including words. Especially words.”

“They called it the Great War, but that implied worthiness and grandeur, not violence and helplessness and the utter waste and devastation our country, our city, our people endured.”