“He looked around. The room, a few suitcases, some belongings, a handful of well-read books— a man needed few things to live. And it was good not to get used to many things when life was unsettled. Again and again one had to abandon them or they were taken away. One should be ready to leave every day. That was the reason he had lived alone— when one was on the move one should not have anything that could bind one. Nothing that could stir the heart. The adventure— but nothing more.”

German novelist

Erich Maria Remarque was a German novelist whose work became closely associated with the experience of World War I. He is best known for All Quiet on the Western Front, published in 1928, a novel drawn from his service in the Imperial German Army. All Quiet on the Western Front became an international bestseller and helped shape a new kind of war writing by veterans. Its anti-war outlook drew Nazi hostility, and Joseph Goebbels denounced Remarque as unpatriotic. He later lived in Switzerland as a refugee and moved on to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen.