" We were standing by the window, the mist pressed and broke in waves against the panes—and I felt that behind it lurked again the secret, the hidden, the past things, the damp
days of horror, the desolation, the filth, the shreds of a waste life, the perplexity, the misguided frittering away of strength in an aimless existence; but here, before me in the shadow, disconcertingly near, the quiet breathing, the unseizable present—warmth, clear living—I must hold it, I must win it. "

― Erich Maria Remarque , Three Comrades