Three Comrades

"After all, I had every reason to be content. I was not so badly off really; I had work, I was strong, I did not tire easily, I was healthy as things go. . . But it was better not to think too much about all that—when alone, at any rate; and especially at night. For every now and then things had a way of rising up suddenly out of the past and staring at one with dead eyes. It was against such times that one kept a bottle of schnapps."

"Rum," said I—happy to have found something I could talk about—"rum has very little to do with taste. It isnt just a simple drink—it is a-friend, more. A friend who makes everything easier. It changes the world."

"Karl," we christened him—Karl, the Road Spook"

"Keep things at arms length, Köster used to say. If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to."

"He looked at me sideways. "You mean, and then mixed things up a bit? Never apologise. Never talk. Send flowers. No letter. Only flowers. They cover up everything. Even graves."

"Its no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid."

"Well, prost!" said he. "May our children have rich parents."

"A woman is not a piece of steel furniture; she is a flower—she does not ask for reality; she wants the warm, gay sun of flattery. It is better to say something pretty to her every day, than to slave grimly for her all your life."

"Come close to me—else the mist will bear you away."

"...one must make the best of it if one is to get even a little bit of what is called happiness."

"Doesnt this make you sad, Ferdinand?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Cynical, if you like. One is sad when one thinks about life—cynical when one -sees what people make of it."

"In times of realism be romantic, thats the trick. Opposites attract."