The breath of desire that then arose from the coloured backs of the books, shall fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back again the lost eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait.

Likely one of the first novels I ever read. My clumsy use of "novel" refers to literature, not simply novelistic genre books routinely purchased at drug stores and discount stores and read in a hour. That grist was so much of my life before university. Aside from the Gehenna revealed, All Quiet proved instructional in its subtle handling of empathy and color. That may appear didactic, but it was enormously significant in my life. I think I have read it twice since then. We've all been handled irrevocably by Ramarque.