1. “I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.”
2. “I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.”
3. “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?”
“Yes. I want to ruin you.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s what I want too.”
4. “We won’t quarrel, baby. I love you too much. But don’t be a fool.”
5. “Perhaps wars weren’t won anymore. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War.”
6. “Now I am depressed myself,’ I said. ‘That’s why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.”
7. “Drink it down, baby, and look forward to being sick.”
8. “I was a little crazy. But I wasn’t crazy in any complicated manner.”
9. “My God, what would a man do with a woman like that except worship her?”
10. “I believe that all the people who stand to profit by a war and who help provoke it should be shot on the first day it starts by accredited representatives of the loyal citizens of their country who will fight it.”
11. “I’m not unfaithful, darling. I’ve plenty of faults but I’m very faithful. You’ll be sick of me I’ll be so faithful.”
12. “He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war.”
13. “Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.”
14. “I’m not brave any more darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me.”
15. “This was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.”
16. “Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
17. Maybe…you’ll fall in love with me all over again.”
“Hell,” I said, “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?”
“Yes. I want to ruin you.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s what I want too.
18. ″[T]he night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.”
19. “I felt very lonely when they were all there.”
20. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
21. “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one’…. (The man who first said that) was probably a coward…. He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”
22. “I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die.”
23. “You know I don’t love any one but you. You shouldn’t mind because some one else loved me.”
24. “the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.”
25. “Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation.”
26. “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
27. “Blow, blow, ye western wind . . . Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again. That my love Catherine. That my sweet love Catherine down might rain. Blow her again to me.”
28. “God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall in love with any one. But God knows I had and I lay on the bed in the room of the hospital in Milan and all sorts of things went through my head but I felt wonderful…”
29. “Keep right on lying to me. That’s what I want you to do.”
30. “Do you suppose it will always go on?”
“No.”
“What’s to stop it?”
It will crack somewhere.”
31. “I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation.”
32. “Vice is a wonderful thing,” Catherine said. “The people who go in for it seem to have good taste about it.”
33. “Love is the wanting to do things for.”
34. “It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.’ She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining.”
35. “A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine glasses.”
36. “Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the windows open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be.”
37. “What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
38. “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?.”
39. “When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
40. “Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.”
41. “I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less. Sometimes a good deal less.”
42. “It was one of those things that gave you a false feeling of soldering.”
43. “You’ve such a lovely temperature.”
44. “I don’t want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.”
45. “The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.”
46. “When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me.”
47. “You don’t have to pretend you love me.”
“But I do love you.”
48. “War is not won by victory.”
49. “My life used to be full of everything. Now if you aren’t with me I haven’t a thing in the world.”
50. “The priest was good but dull. The officers were not good but dull. The King was good but dull. The wine was bad but not dull.”
51. “But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”
52. “If people bring so much courage to the world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them”
53. “And this was the price you paid for sleeping together.”
54. “And you’ll always love me won’t you?
Yes
And the rain won’t make any difference?
No”
55. “I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.”
56. “When she cried her whole face went to pieces.”
57. “They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is.”
58. “I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.”
59. “We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete.”
60. “When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. She looked toward the door, saw there was no one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me.”
61. “You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.”
62. “I kissed her neck and shoulders. I felt faint with loving her so much.”
63. “It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot.”
64. “There isnt always an explanation for everything.”
65. “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”
66. “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
67. “It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
68. “Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”
69. “They arrested us after breakfast.”
70. “Where should we go?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere you want. Anywhere we don’t know people.”
71. “Wine is a grand thing,” I said. “It makes you forget all the bad.”
72. “I don’t. I don’t want anybody else to touch you. I’m silly. I get furious if they touch you.”
73. “Your blood coagulates beautifully.”
74. “I don’t know,” I said. “There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”
“Oh, isn’t there? I was brought up to think there was.”
“That’s awfully nice.”
75. “I wish to marry her . . . But she has one drawback, her attitude is uncooperative.”
76. “Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.”
77. “There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
78. “The whole thing seemed to run better while I was away.”
79. “There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me.”
80. “Oh, darling, you will be good to me, won’t you? Because we’re going to have a strange life.”
81. “You won’t do our things with another girl, or say the same things, will you?.”
82. “You could not go back. If you did not go forward what happened?”
83. “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?’
‘Of course. Who said it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He was probably a coward,’ she said. “He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”
84. “But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
85. “All thinking men are atheists.”
