- Krystyna: Look. An old crypt. An inscription. "So often are you as a blazing torch with flames of burning hemp falling about you flaming, you know not if the flames bring freedom or death, consuming all that you most cherish. Will only ashes remain, and chaos whirling into the void." The letters are blurred. I can't read it.
- Maciek Chelmicki: It's by Norwid. "Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond, the Morning Star of everlasting triumph."
- Krystyna: That's beautiful. "Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond..." And what are we?
- Maciek Chelmicki: You - are definitely a diamond.
- Krystyna: In a hurry?
- Maciek Chelmicki: No, I'm meeting someone.
- Krystyna: A woman?
- Maciek Chelmicki: Happy?
- Krystyna: Who?
- Maciek Chelmicki: You.
- Krystyna: Me?
- Szczuka: I'd be a bad communist, comrades, if I were to reassure you like a bunch of naive kids. The end of the war isn't the end of our fight. The fight for Poland and what kind of country it's to become has only just begun. Today or tomorrow or the day after, any one of us could die.
- Waga: You're too experienced a soldier not to realize that as your superior officer I have the right to ignore that question.
- Maciek Chelmicki: No need to take things so seriously. The main thing is to find a way through this mess without being tricked or getting bored. What else is there?
- Andrzej: Listen, I'm responsible to Florian.
- Maciek Chelmicki: That's all right. I'm responsible to you. Everyone's got to be responsible to somebody.
- Hanka Lewicka: [singing] Years will pass and ages will roll by, But traces of bygone days will remain, And all the poppies of Monte Cassino, Will be redder from growing in Polish blood.
- Krystyna: Why do you always wear those dark glasses?
- Maciek Chelmicki: A souvenir of unrequited love for my homeland.
- Szczuka: [Franek holds out a handful of bullets, Szczuka examines one] German. Did you find them?
- Franek Pawlicki: No, but we will. Some of these are English too. At close range, there's not the slightest difference.
- Maciek Chelmicki: You know... I'd like to change certain things, organize my life differently. But it's hard to talk about... I hadn't thought about lots of things till now. Life just always worked itself out somehow, and the point was just to survive.