- Willy's Mother: So, it's Ernst is it? What have to been doing to my Willi out there at the front?
- Ernst: I? I haven't done anything.
- Willy's Mother: Oh yes you have! I send him away a sweet-natured curly-headed boy, and you bring me back a great hulking bald-headed monster!
- Tjaden: Its just goin' on and on. Nobody knows how to stop it now. It's got too big and too old. Might as well try and stop the Rhine.
- Ernst: It can't go on.
- Tjaden: What, the Rhine?
- Ernst: The war. We've no shells, no food. We're bandaging wounds with paper. It's got to stop.
- Willy: And you're the man who's going to stop it I suppose?
- Ernst: It's up to us to stop it together - you and I, the common soldier. It's in our power to stop it.
- Willy: It's not the war you'll stop - it's a bullet against the wall.
- Willy: Think of being in a bedroom on your own after spendin' three years sleepin' with a man's feet in your face. I tell you, it's gonna take a lot of nerve!