We are forlorn like children$$$ and experienced like old men$$$ we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.

But now$$$ for the first time$$$ I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades$$$ of your bayonet$$$ of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me$$$ comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us$$$ that your mothers are just as anxious as ours$$$ and that we have the same fear of death$$$ and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me$$$ comrade; how could you be my enemy?

I am young$$$ I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair$$$ death$$$ fear$$$ and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another$$$ and in silence$$$ unknowingly$$$ foolishly$$$ obediently$$$ innocently slay one another.

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.

Our knowledge of life is limited to death

The idea of authority$$$ which they represented$$$ was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom.

For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity$$$ the world of work$$$ of duty$$$ of culture$$$ of progress -- to the future.

Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands$$$ like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries$$$ dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs$$$ can have it out on themselves. Whoever survives the country wins. That would be much simpler and more than just this arrangement$$$ where the wrong people do the fighting

There was someone there and they had been there. There was no one there. There was someone there and they had been there and they had not left but there was no one there.

John Grady looked at the table. The paper cat stepped thin and slant among the shapes of cats thereon. He looked up again. Yessir$$$ he said. Just me and him.