All Quiet on the Western Front : Character Quotes
Directions: Students should be divided into small groups with each group given a quote to analyze for the speaker’s attitude toward war. (Page numbers are from the Glencoe edition of the novel).
1.
Kantorek: “’Won’t you join up, Comrades?’” (page 5)
2.
Paul: “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. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more human wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief.
We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.” (page 6)
3.
Muller: “Muller reappears with a pair of airman’s boots. Muller is delighted at the sight of them. He matches their soles against his own clumsy boots and says: “’Will you be taking them with you then,
Franz?’” (page 7)
4.
Kat: “’You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well.’” (page 18)
5.
Sergeant Major: “’You think you can bring your front-line manners here, what? Well, we don’t stand for that sort of thing. Thank God, we have discipline here!’” (page 73)
6.
German teacher: “’Well, how are things out there? You do at least get decent food out there, so I hear. You look well, Paul, and fit. Naturally it’s worse here. Naturally. The best for our soldiers every time, that goes without saying.’” (page 74)

7.
Headmaster: “He dismisses the idea loftily and informs me I know nothing about it. ‘The details, yes,’ says he, ‘but this relates to the whole.
And of that you are not able to judge. You see only your little sector and so cannot have any general survey. You do your duty, you risk your lives, that deserves the highest honour—every man of you ought to have the Iron Cross—but first of all the enemy line must be broken through in
Flanders and then rolled up from the top.’” (page 75)