“Everyone lives for the minute”: the best quotes from the novel “Life on Borrow” by E.M. Remark. Quotes from "Life on Borrow" remark

The beginning of the 50s of the last century. Race car driver Klerfe comes to visit his old friend at the Montana sanatorium in Switzerland. There he meets a terminally ill girl, Lillian. Tired of the strict rules of the sanatorium, of routine and monotony, she decides to run away with Klerfe to where there is another life, a life that speaks the language of books, paintings and music... Both fugitives, despite all the dissimilarity, have one thing in common - the absence confidence in the future. Clairefe lives from race to race, and Lilian knows that her disease is progressing and she has very little time left to live. Their romance is developing very rapidly, they love each other as only people can love who know that everything will end soon... But not now! And while life goes on, it is wonderful!

I love quotes from him... I once wrote them down with careful accuracy in a separate notebook...

...No one can escape fate...And no one knows when it will overtake you. What's the point of bargaining with time? And what, in essence, is a long life? Long past. Our future each time lasts only until the next breath. Nobody knows what will happen next. Each of us lives for the minute. Everything that awaits us after this minute is only hopes and illusions.

...How clumsy a person becomes when he truly loves! How quickly his self-confidence flies away! And how lonely he seems to himself; all his vaunted experience suddenly dissipates like smoke, and he feels so insecure.

... “The place where you live has nothing to do with life itself,” he said slowly. “I realized that there is no place that would be so good that it would be worth throwing your life for. And there are almost no people for whom it would be worth doing this. Sometimes you reach the simplest truths in a roundabout way.
- But when they tell you about it, it still doesn’t help. Is it true?
- Yes, it doesn’t help. You have to experience it yourself. Otherwise it will always seem like you missed the most important thing.

...as long as you remember the constant fall, nothing is lost. Apparently, life loves paradoxes; when it seems to you that everything is absolutely in order, you often look funny and stand on the edge of an abyss, but when you know that everything is lost, life literally gives you a gift. You may not even lift a finger, luck itself runs after you like a poodle.

Life is a sailboat with too many sails, so it can capsize at any moment.

To understand something, a person needs to experience a catastrophe, pain, poverty, and the proximity of death.

Almost no person thinks about death until it comes close to him.

Erich Maria Remarque
Germany, 06/22/1898 – 09/25/1970

Born in Osnabrück, Germany. In his metric it was written “Erich Paul Remarque”; He later took the second name “Maria” in memory of his mother. In 1916, he volunteered to go to the front, was seriously wounded, and spent a long time in the hospital. In 1928, he published the famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which instantly brought him popularity. In 1933, Remarque's books were banned in Germany, five years later the writer was deprived of citizenship, and he and his family left for the United States, and after the war, in 1947, he accepted American citizenship.
In 1948, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he lived for some time before emigrating to the United States, and returned to spend the rest of his life in this country.

Other works:

“Three Comrades”, “Arc de Triomphe”, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, “Black Obelisk”, “A Time to Live, a Time to Die”, “Shadows in Paradise”, etc.

I decided to open a new section where quotes about style will be published, of course, indicating the author and the work.

Today - Erich Maria Remarque "Life on Borrow".

1. "Lillian chose four suits. When she tried them on, the saleswoman was especially attentive to her.

“You chose well,” she said. - It seems as if these things were sewn especially for you. This happens rarely. Most women buy outfits they like; you buy what suits you. You look wonderful in this wide trouser suit.

Lillian looked at herself in the mirror. Her face seemed more tanned in Paris than in the mountains; my shoulders were also tanned. New dresses emphasized the lines of her figure and the uniqueness of her face. She suddenly became very beautiful, moreover, her transparent eyes, which did not recognize anyone and looked as if through the surrounding objects, gave her a special sad charm and a kind of detachment from everything that touched the heart. She heard the conversations of the women in the neighboring booths, saw how they looked at her as they left, these tireless warriors for the rights of their sex, but Lillian knew that she had little in common with them. Dresses were not a weapon for her in the fight for a man. Her goal was life and herself.

On the fourth day, the senior saleswoman came for a fitting. A week later Balenciaga himself appeared. They realized that this customer could wear their designs with special chic. Lilian said little, but stood patiently in front of the mirror; the subtle Spanish flavor of the things she chose gave her young appearance something tragic, which, however, was not too deliberate. When she put on black or bright red dresses, like Mexican shawls, or short jackets, like matadors, or immensely wide coats, in which the body seemed weightless, so that all attention was concentrated only on the face, the the melancholy that was characteristic of her.

“You made a great choice,” said the senior saleswoman. — These things will never go out of fashion; you can wear them for many years."

2. “A dress is something more than a fancy dress. In new clothes, a person becomes different, although this is not immediately noticeable. Those who truly know how to wear dresses perceive something from them; oddly enough, dresses and people influence each other, and this has nothing to do with rude dressing at a masquerade. You can adapt to clothes and at the same time not lose your individuality. For those who understand this, dresses do not kill, like most women who buy their own outfits. How On the contrary, dresses love and protect such a person, they help him more than any confessor, than unfaithful friends, and even than a lover.

Lillian knew all this. She knew that a hat that suits you serves as a greater moral support than a whole set of laws. She knew that in the thinnest evening dress, if it fits well, you cannot catch a cold, but it is easy to catch a cold in the dress that irritates you, or in the one whose double you see on another woman at the same evening; such things seemed as irrefutable to Lillian as chemical formulas. But she knew. also that in moments of difficult emotional experiences, dresses can become either good friends or sworn enemies; Without their help, a woman feels completely lost, but when they help her, as friendly hands help, it is much easier for a woman in a difficult moment. There is not an ounce of vulgarity in all this, we just shouldn’t forget how important little things are in life.”

Remarque began writing after he fought in the First World War. “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the novel with which Remarque debuted, made the impression of a bomb exploding. The story of the “lost generation” was translated into 25 languages, filmed and received all possible prizes from the Academy of Motion Pictures.

“Life on Borrow” was published in 1959, later the title was changed to “Heaven Knows No Favorites.” In the novel, the writer explores the eternal theme of life and death. At gunpoint is the paradoxical observation that despite all the transience of life, it is eternal, and death, despite all its inevitability, is instantaneous. In Russia, the novel under the first title was published in the magazine "Foreign Literature". Based on the film "Bobby Deerfield" was created in 1977, the racer was played by Al Pacino (directed by Sydney Pollack).

Waiting for the inevitable

So, the novel is about life and death. Main characters: Lilian and Clerfe. They are united by exactly opposite desires: Lilian is sick with tuberculosis, so she desperately wants to live, and Clerfe recklessly risks her life, testing her strength and, apparently, strives to die.

The philosophy of the "lost generation" affected the minds of the main characters of the novel. The meaninglessness of wasted life worries them both.

Here are a few quotes from E. M. Remarque’s book “Life on Borrow”:

They all strive either for adventure, or for business, or to fill the emptiness in themselves with the noise of jazz.

Entertainment and the hunt for adventure haunt a whole generation of people, because, as the wars that happened have shown, there are no guarantees about the coming of tomorrow. The only way to feel alive is to rush into the abyss of life with all your might.

They say that nowadays there are two ways to deal with money. One is to save money and then lose it during inflation, the other is to spend it.

At the same time, meeting Lilian makes Clerfay take a different look at life: from the point of view of a girl for whom every day she lives is a gift of fate.

Another quote from the book “Life on Borrow”:

She is chasing life, only life, she is hunting for it like crazy, as if life were a white deer or a fairy-tale unicorn. She gives herself so much to the chase that her passion infects others. She knows neither restraint nor looking back. With her you feel either old and shabby, or like a perfect child.

And then, from the depths of forgotten years, someone’s faces suddenly emerge, old dreams and shadows of old dreams are resurrected, and then suddenly, like a flash of lightning in the twilight, a long-forgotten feeling of the uniqueness of life appears.

Rally through life

What can revive an almost dead soul in the midst of boredom and routine? Only life itself. As soon as a person faces the threat of losing it, he clings with all his might to this ephemeral substance, although he perfectly understands that this is a temporary state. But why do you want to continue it? Is it really possible that omnipotent love makes a person live...

Quotes from "Life on Borrow" on this topic:

She knows that she must die, and she has gotten used to this thought, like people get used to morphine, this thought transforms the whole world for her, she knows no fear, neither vulgarity nor blasphemy frightens her.

Why the hell do I feel something like horror, instead of, without thinking, rush into the whirlpool?

The main character of the novel does not immediately trust the flaring feeling, because he risks his life too often; it has no value for him. Too intrusive, short and unpredictable, says Clerfe.

You come, watch a play, in which at first you don’t understand a word, and then, when you begin to understand something, it’s time for you to leave.

He is irritated by any manifestations of insincerity, any falsehood, hypocrisy. A symbol of such an indifferent manifestation of care for him is the treating staff of the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, where Lilian is being treated.

E. M. Remarque, “Life on Borrow”, quotes:

And why do these guardians of health treat people who are admitted to the hospital with such patient superiority, as if they were babies or idiots?

But unexpectedly for himself, he concludes that it is the inevitability of death that makes it possible for a person to feel life:

I realized that everything in which we consider ourselves superior to animals - our happiness, more personal and more multifaceted, our deeper knowledge and more cruel soul, our capacity for compassion and even our idea of ​​\u200b\u200bGod - all this is bought at the same price: we learned what, according to people, is inaccessible to animals - we learned the inevitability of death.

On the scales

There is no place for politics in the novel “Life on Borrow”: the war is over, people have returned to peaceful life and are trying in different ways to improve it. Except for the main characters of the novel, who go against the grain of life. Why? What makes Lillian rush into the whirlpool of life at the first opportunity, to leave the shelter, where there may be a chance of recovery.

The heroine's thoughts in quotes:

What do I know about life? Destruction, flight from Belgium, tears, fear, death of parents, hunger, and then illness due to hunger and flight. Before that I was a child.

I almost don’t remember what cities look like at night. What do I know about the sea of ​​lights, about the avenues and streets sparkling at night? All I know is darkened windows and a hail of bombs falling from the darkness. All I know is occupation, seeking shelter and cold. Happiness? How narrowed this boundless word that once shone in my dreams. An unheated room, a piece of bread, a shelter, any place that was not under fire began to seem like happiness.

The death of a friend pushes Lillian to a reckless act: to leave the sanatorium. This rebellion is actually an escape from death, an escape from a dream. She didn’t think much about it, because the value of life can only be known by living it.

"Life on Borrow", quotes from the book:

Really, in order to understand something, a person needs to experience a catastrophe, pain, poverty, the proximity of death?!

Clerfay resists, he is used to taking risks, and at first his meeting with Lilian seems like an adventure with a provincial girl. Unlike Lillian, he had something to lose, he had a desire to take risks and did not have much desire to live. He resisted until he realized that love could not be overcome. Love is like death - also inevitable and inescapable. And he rushes after his beloved.

There is no turning back in love. You can never start over: what happens remains in the blood... Love, like time, is irreversible. And neither sacrifices, nor readiness for anything, nor good will - nothing can help, such is the gloomy and ruthless law of love.

And no plans for the future

To seek consolation in everything, to find it even where there is none - obsessed with this thought, Lillian flees from death.

I have no future. Not having a future is almost the same as not obeying earthly laws.

She looks for symbols in the environment that confirm she is right. Even the St. Gotthard railway tunnel, through which the heroes pass on the way to Paris, seems to Lilian to be the biblical River Styx, which cannot be entered twice. The gloom and darkness of the tunnel is a bleak past, at the end of the tunnel is the bright light of life...

In inconsolable situations, people always seek comfort wherever they can. And they find it.

You don’t have to look life in the face, it’s enough to feel it.

Now, like light and shadow, they were inseparable from each other.

Lillian suddenly realized how they were alike. They were both people without a future. Clerfay's future extended to the next races, and hers to the next bleeding.

For Clerfe, finding love meant a new attitude towards life.

He admits to himself:

I realized that there is no place that is so good that it is worth throwing your life away for. And there are almost no people for whom it would be worth doing this.

He decides to marry Lillian and proposes to her. He sees charm in what was previously inaccessible and contrary to the protagonist’s worldview.

"Life on Borrow", quotes:

How beautiful are these women who do not allow us to become demigods, turning us into fathers of families, into respectable burghers, into breadwinners; women who catch us in their nets, promising to turn us into gods. Aren't they beautiful?

In fact, it was a death sentence for their relationship. Lillian could not make plans for the future; she knew too well about her illness. She decides to break up with her lover because they cannot have any future...

The truth is the other way around

Captivated by love, the main characters of the novel forgot that everything in this world is finite and death is already waiting around the corner. But it is not she who is awaiting death who dies, but he who dies during the race, who has decided to live for love.

I want to own everything, which means owning nothing.

After all, there is no point in bargaining with time. And time is life.

Everything in the world contains its opposite, nothing can exist without it, like light without shadow, like truth without lies, like illusion without reality - all these concepts are not only connected with each other, but also inseparable from each other.

Lilian did not survive her hero for long; she died a month and a half later, returning to the sanatorium. Before death, she suggests that a person has only a few days in his life when he is truly happy.

Well, Lilian was truly happy with Clerfay. Despite the tragic ending of the novel and the death of both heroes, the story is permeated with optimism and faith in the power of love and the inevitable victory of life over death.

The opposite of love is death. The bitter spell of love helps us forget about it for a short time. Therefore, everyone who is at least a little familiar with death is also familiar with love.

After all, the value of life is determined not by its length, but by a person’s attitude towards it - Her Majesty - Life.