"He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?"

Trauma, War, Fear, Reality

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"He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?"

Exlpore more Trauma quotes

"You've never had someone you love snatched, I shot back, annoyed by her ignorance. 'Any sense of safety kind of bites it after that. You watch your back because no one else can."

Katherine McIntyre, American Novelist

Trauma, Loss, Security, Fear

"I learned how to stop crying.I learned how to hide inside of myself.I learned how to be somebody else.I learned how to be cold and numb."

Sherman Alexie, American Writer

Trauma, Defense, Survival, Identity

"I had no evidence. No physical signs of my rape existed anymore. My body had already purged them. That was the irreversible reality."

Aspen Matis, American Author

Trauma, Reality, Loss, Evidence

"His abusemakes her an anvilwithout spark."

Munia Khan, Bangladeshi Poet

Trauma, Abuse, Pain, Suffering, Darkness

"Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison."

Ann Brashares, American Author

Trauma, Prison, Hurt, Memory, Isolation

"I'm afraid it will never be perfect again. I am indelibly stained. Forever redefined, but blurred around the edges."

Ellen Hopkins, American Novelist

Trauma, Loss, Identity, Pain

"As Jess watched in numb horror, the man tore a page from the book and stuffed it into his mouth."

Rachel Caine, Canadian Actress

Trauma, Horror, Fear, Emotion, Violence

"And oh she had been broken. She hid it well, but Ross knew from personal experience that once you had put the pieces together, even though you might look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall."

Jodi Picoult, American Novelist

Trauma, Healing, Change, Resilience, Strength

"I wished at that moment that the Wests had killed me, it would have been a merciful release from the hell that DC Smith was putting me through. This barrage of questions by DC Smith and his heavy-handedness into this inquiry and his bullying barrack-room interrogation style of interviewing had left me feeling shamed."

Stephen Richards, British Author

Trauma, Interrogation, Bullying, Police

"Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother."

Anne Lamott, American Author

Trauma, Regret, Truth, Pain, Family

Explore more quotes by Erich Maria Remarque

"I am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their forms move like stick storks, like great birds. They come close up to the wire fence and lean their faces against it. Their fingers hook round the mesh."

Birds

"The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off."

Woman

"Through the years our business has been killing."

Ambition

"The things men did or felt they had to do."

Gratitude

"We developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity, which grew, on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced - comradeship in arms."

Brotherhood

"We don't act like that because we are in good humor we are in a good humor because otherwise we should go to pieces."

Loneliness

"And be very careful at the front, Paul.Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are!"

Balance

"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war."

War

"Petnaest srećnih godina su kratke - odgovorih. Petnaest nesrećnih godina su duge i pružaju čoveku mnogo iskustva."

Experience

"I glance at my boots. They are big and clumsy, the breeches are tucked into them, and standing up one looks well-built and powerful in those great drainpipes. But when we go bathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are no longer soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked; then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. When bathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now - buy why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: 'That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn't want to die. Let him not die!"

War