Discover a wealth of wisdom and insight from Louis-Ferdinand Celine through their most impactful and thought-provoking quotes and sayings. Expand your perspective with their inspiring words and share these beautiful Louis-Ferdinand Celine quote pictures with your friends and followers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog - all free of charge. We've compiled the top 250 Louis-Ferdinand Celine quotes for you to explore and share with others.

Those people were pushing life and night and day in front of them. Life hides everything from people. Their own noise prevents them from hearing anything else. They couldn't care less. The bigger and taller the city, the less they care. Take it from me. I've tried. It's a waste of time. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Life Pushing Night Day

Study changes a man, puts pride into him. You need it to get to the bottom of life. Without it you just skim the surface. You think you're in the know, but trifles throw you off. You dream too much. You content yourself with words instead of going deeper. That's not what you wanted. Intentions, appearances, no more. A man of character can't content himself with that. Medicine, even if I wasn't very gifted, had brought me a good deal closer to people, to animals, everything. Now all I had to do was plunge straight into the heart of things. Death is chasing you, you've got to hurry, and while you're looking you've got to eat, and keep away from wars. That's a lot of things to do. It's no picnic. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Study Puts Pride Man Content

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Knew Duty Inside Stopped Short

If only I had met Molly sooner, when it was still possible to choose one road rather than another! Before that bitch Musyne and that little turd Lola crimped my enthusiasm! But it was too late to start being young again. I didn't believe in it any more! We grow old so quickly and, what's more, irremediably. You can tell by the way you start loving your misery in spite of yourself. Nature is stronger than we are, no two ways about it. She tries us in one particular mould, and we're never able to throw it off. I had started out as the restless type. Little by little, without realizing it, you begin to take your role and fate seriously, and, before you know it, it's too late to change. You're a hundred per cent restless, and it's set that way for good. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Molly Sooner Met Choose Road

The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrowto go on doing what you did today and have been doing for muchtoo long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Find Strength Worst Truth Long

It is, I believe, one of the few dangerous forms of eccentricity, a highly contagious mania, to be precise, of the rampant social variety! In your friend's case, we may not yet be dealing with out-and-out insanity ... No ... Maybe his trouble is only exaggerated conviction ... But the contagious manias are well known to me! ... I've known a good many sufferers from conviction mania ... Of many different types ... And in the last analysis, those who talk about justice seem to be the maddest of the lot! ... At first, I must confess, I took a certain interest in justice fanatics ... Today those particular maniacs annoy and exasperate me more than I can tell ... Don't you feel the same way? ... Human beings show a strange aptitude for transmitting this mania. It terrifies me, and we find it, mind you, in all human beings! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Eccentricity Precise Variety Mania Dangerous

But maybe it's wrong of me to complain ... I'm alive after all ... and I lose an enemy or two every day ... cancer, apoplexy, gluttony ... it's a pleasure the number that pass on! ... I'm not hard to please ... a name! ... another! ... there are good things in life ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Complain Wrong Cancer Apoplexy Gluttony

But when you are week the best way to fortify yourself is to strip the people you fear of the last bit of prestige you're still inclined to give them. Learn to consider them they are, worse than they are in fact and from every point of view. That will release you, set you free, protect you more than you can possibly imagine. It will give you another self. There will be two of you. That will strip their words and deeds of the obscene mystical fascination that weakens you and makes you waste your time. From then on you'll find their act no more amusing, no more relevant to your inner progress than that of the lowliest pig. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Week Fortify People Fear Bit

When you write, you should put your skin on the table. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Write Table Put Skin

Maybe I'd never see him again ... maybe he'd gone for good ... swallowed up, body and soul, in the kind of stories you hear about ... Ah, it's an awful thing ... and being young doesn't help any ... when you notice for the first time ... the way you lose people as you go along ... the buddies you'll never see again ... never again ... when you notice that they've disappeared like dreams ... that it's all over ... finished ... that you too will get lost someday ... a long way off but inevitably ... in the awful torrent of things and people ... of the days and shapes ... that pass ... that never stop ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Notice Awful People Good Swallowed

We're workers, they say. Work, they call it! That's the crummiest part of the whole business. We're down in the hold, heaving and panting, stinking and sweating our balls off, and meanwhile! Up on deck in the fresh air, what do you see?! Our masters having a fine time with beautiful pink and perfumed women on their laps. They send for us, we're brought up on deck. They put on their top hats and give us a big spiel like as follows: "You no-good swine! We're at war! Those stinkers in Country No. 2! We're going to board them and cut their livers out! Let's go! Let's go! We've got everything we need on board! All together now! Let's hear you shout so the deck trembles: 'Long live Country No. 1!' So you'll be heard for miles around. The man that shouts the loudest will get a medal and a lollipop! Let's By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Workers Deck Country Work Board

I have no ideas, myself! Not a one! there's nothing more vulgar, more common, more disgusting than ideas! libraries are loaded with them! and every sidewalk cafe! ... the impotent are bloated with ideas! ... they dazzle youth with ideas! they play the pimp! ... and youth is ever ready, as you know, Professor, to gobble up anything, to go OOH! and AAH! by the numbers! How those pimps have an easy job of it! the passionate years of youth are spent getting a hard on and gargling ideeaas! ... philosophies, if you prefer! ... yes sir, philosophies! youth loves sham just as young dogs love those sticks, like bones, that we throw and they run after! they race forward, yipping away, wasting their time, that's the main thing! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Ideas Youth Philosophies Professor Ooh

In the whole of your absurd past you discover so much that's absurd, so much deceit and credulity, that it might be a good idea to stop being young this minute, to wait for youth to break away from you and pass you by, to watch it going away, receding in the distance, to see all its vanity, run your hand through the empty space it has left behind, take a last look at it, and then start moving, make sure your youth has really gone, and then calmly, all by yourself, cross to the other side of Time to see what people and things really look like. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Absurd Youth Time Credulity Minute

When, grown older, we look back on the selfishness of the people who've been mixed up with our lives, we see it undeniably for what it was, as hard as steel or platinum and a lot more durable than time itself. As By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Grown Older Lives Back Selfishness

I was rather fond of her, but I was even fonder of my vices, my mania for running away from everywhere in search of God knows what, driven, I suppose, by stupid pride, by a sense of some sort of superiority By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Driven God Vices Suppose Pride

We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Outfit Intellectuals Word Chimpanzees Advice

You can find something funny in anything! I'm sick as a dog and falling to bits, but I'll give up joking only after I give up the ghost! my last gasp! The proof, here, with only an eighth of a glimmer of light, things oozing out of my asshole, my armpits, and the elbows, too, blood coming out of the eyes, from the soupy mess of my grave, me whistling a tune, that's what you'll hear! A regular blackbird! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Give Find Funny Bits Ghost

I was in full digression! far from the subject! ... my colonel was losing track ... rapidly, of my story! my story! ... my own story! ... the gifts that I had personally received from Heaven! ... yet I had insisted, every time! truly extraordinary gifts! ... I'd made him repeat them a hundred times! ... enough so he'd remember! that I was the only true genius! the century's only writer! the proof: that no one ever spoke of me! ... everyone was jealous! Nobel! no Nobel! they had all joined forces to have me executed! ... they could just go fuck off! ... drop dead! since it was a question of death between me and them! I'll send their readers packing! all their readers! I'll make the public grow sick of their books! cabal! no cabal! since there was no room for two styles! ... it was mine or theirs! ... crawl or breastroke! ... you understand! ... the only inventor of the century! is me! me! me right here! the only genius, you might say! damned or not! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Story Digression Full Nobel Genius

Laziness is almost as compelling as life. The new farce you're having to play crushes you with its banality, and all in all it takes more cowardice than courage to start all over again. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Laziness Life Compelling Banality Farce

Dreams rise in the darkness and catch fire from the mirage of moving light. What happens on the screen isn't quite real; it leaves open a vague cloudy space for the poor, for dreams and the dead. Hurry hurry, cream yourself full of dreams to carry you through the life that's waiting for you outside, when you leave here, to help you last a few days more in that nightmare of things and people. Among the dreams, choose the ones most likely to warm your soul. I have to confess that I picked the sexy ones. No point in being proud; when it comes to miracles, take the ones that will stay with you. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dreams Light Rise Darkness Catch

The best thing to do when you're in this world, don't you agree, is to get out of it. Crazy or not, scared or not. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine World Agree Thing Crazy Scared

There is something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't ever try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. Americans or not, they sleep no matter what, they're bloated mollusks, no sensibility, no trouble with their conscience. I'd seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I'd better go out, I said to myself, I'd better go out again. Maybe I'll meet Robinson. Naturally that was an idiotic idea, but I dreamed it up as an excuse for going out again, because no matter how I tossed and turned on my narrow bed, I couldn't snatch the tiniest scrap of sleep. Even masturbation, at times like that, provides neither comfort nor entertainment. Then you're really in despair. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sad People Bed Matter Sleep

I don't have to worry about Madame Ouche! she'll still be robbing me blind when she's dead! ... having made her last confession and received extreme unction ... all the cataclysms will pass over her without harming a single gray hair on her head! it's a paradise here for scum like her, on earth as there is in heaven ... they don't really die, the sluts, the hussies, the really awful ones, they just go from one paradise to another, with their money, servants, cars ... just buy their cute little ticket and off they go! final absolution and see you later! they shit in your hands! ... they're born to slip out of both hells - the one here and the one in the next world ... all they do is fuck and whine ... loads of cash! never broke! ... cheers! here's to you! no regrets! you realize too late ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Ouche Madame Worry Paradise Dead

When I think now of all the lunatics I knew at Baryton's, I can't help suspecting that the only two manifestations of our innermost being are war and insanity, those two absolute nightmares. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Baryton Insanity Nightmares Lunatics Knew

The biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget, especially the things that have done you in, and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess. When the grave lies open before us, let's not try to be witty, but on the other hand, let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. When that's done, we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit. That's work enough for a lifetime. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Forget Crumminess Biggest Defeat Department

Then you're not coming? You'd rather go to the pen? Okay! . . . You don't care if I turn you in? ... You don't care if I love you or not? . . . You don't care about my future? You don't care about anything, do you? . . .""No," he says. "In a way you're right . . . But it's not just you ... I don't care about anyone else either . . . Christ, don't take it as an insult! ... I know you're a sweet kid . . . But I don't want to be loved anymore ... It disgusts me! . . . By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Care Coming Pen Turn Christ

In the art of squeezing the last ounce of labor out of a two-legged animal, those primitive ancients were pretentious incompetents! Did they ever think of calling their slave "Monsieur" or letting him vote now and then, or giving him his newspaper? And especially had they thought of sending him to war to work off his passions? After twenty centuries of Christianity (as I personally can bear witness) your modern man simply can't control himself when a regiment passes before his eyes. It puts too many ideas into his head. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Animal Incompetents Art Squeezing Ounce

Most people die at the last minute; others twenty years beforehand, some even earlier. They are the wretched of the earth. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Minute Earlier People Die Twenty

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine War Wealthy Poetry Heroism Appeals

Over our heads, two millimetres, maybe one millimetre from our temples, those long tempting lines of steel that bullets make when they're out to kill you were whistling through the hot summer air. I'd never felt so useless as I did amid all those bullets in the sunlight. A vast and universal mockery. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Heads Temples Air Bullets Long

I'm recapitulating ... condensing ... it's the Readers Digest style ... people only have time to read thirty pages ... apparently! ... maximum! ... that's all they have time for! they horse around for sixteen hours out of twenty-four, they sleep, they copulate the rest, where would they find the time to read a hundred pages? oh, do caca, I forgot! as well! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Recapitulating Time Pages Read Readers

I've never been able to forget the infinite little smile of pure affection that danced across his livid face. Enough gaiety to fill the universe. Few people past twenty preserve any of the affection, the affection of animals. This world isn't what we expected. So our looks change! They change plenty! We made a mistake! And turned into a thorough stinker in next to no time! Past twenty it shows in our face! A mistake! Our face is just a mistake! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Mistake Affection Face Forget Infinite

A time comes when you're all alone, when you've come to the end of everything that can happen to you. It's the end of the world. Even grief, your own grief, doesn't answer you anymore, and you have to retrace your steps, to go back among people, it makes no difference who. You're not choosy at times like that, because even to weep you have to go back where everything starts all over, back among people. "What By Louis-Ferdinand Celine End Back People Happen Grief

Never be picky and choosy about means of escaping disembowelment, or waste your time trying to find reasons for the persecution you're a victim of. Escape is good enough for the wise. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Disembowelment Picky Choosy Escaping Waste

Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength.It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined. It's a novel, just a fictitious narrative. Littre says so and he's never wrong.And besides, in the first place, anyone can do as much. You just have to close your eyes.It's on the other side of life. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Travel Imagination Exercises Life Fatigue

We're pupils of the religions - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish ... Well, the Christian religions. Those who directed French education down through the centuries were the Jesuits. They taught us how to make sentences translated from the Latin, well balanced, with a verb, a subject, a complement, a rhythm. In short - here a speech, there a preach, everywhere a sermon! They say of an author, "He knits a nice sentence!" Me, I say, "It's unreadable." They say, "What magnificent theatrical language!" I look, I listen. It's flat, it's nothing, it's nil. Me, I've slipped the spoken word into print. In one sole shot. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Catholic Protestant Jewish Religions Pupils

Who is the true friend of the people? Fascism is. Who has done the most for the working man? The USSR or Hitler? Hitler has ... Who has done the most for the small businessman? Not Thorez but Hitler! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hitler People True Friend Ussr

One little second of pleasure, a whole life of pain ... my mother knew nothing of the pleasures of a good roll in the hay ... she missed out on all that ... like me, her son ... a lifetime of sacrifice! ... the woman who can grunt and rave in the throes of a deep fuck can die happy ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Pain Life Pleasure Pleasures Hay

We went there to grope for our happiness, which all the world was threatening with the utmost ferocity. We were ashamed of wanting what we wanted, but something had to be done about it all the same. Love is harder to give up than life. In this world we spend our time killing or adoring, or both together. "I hate you! I adore you!" We keep going, we fuel and refuel, we pass on our life to a biped of the next century, with frenzy, at any cost, as if it were the greatest of pleasures to perpetuate ourselves, as if, when all's said and done, it would make us immortal. One way or another, kissing is as indispensable as scratching. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Happiness Ferocity Grope Threatening Utmost

Here we are, alone again. It's all so slow, so heavy, so sad. . . I'll be old soon. Then at last it will be over. So many people have come into my room. They've talked. They haven't said much. They've gone away. They've grown old, wretched, sluggish, each in some corner of the world. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Slow Heavy Sad Wretched Sluggish

Here's the truth, simply stated ... bookstores are suffering from a serious crisis of falling sales. Don't believe a single zero of all those editions claimed to be 100,000! 40,000! ... even 400 copies! just for the suckers! Alack! ... Alas! ... only love and romance ... and even then! ... manage to keep selling ... and a few murder mysteries ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Truth Simply Stated Bookstores Sales

Man hardly comes in more than two varieties, wherever he is, whatever he does: workers and pimps ... they're either one or the other! ... and inventors, the worst kind of jobholder! ... they stand condemned! ... the writer who doesn't pimp along, peacefully plagiarizing, who doesn't pump out the pop stuff, he's had it! ... everybody hates him! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Man Varieties Workers Inventors Jobholder

"Fine! Fine! I'm listening ... but it's not very interesting! ... "Oh, that's what you think! that's what you think! but nothing is very interesting, dear Professor Y! jot this down! take some notes!" "What notes?" "Just write! ... that if it weren't for wars, alcohol, blood pressure and cancer, the people in our atheistic Europe would soon be bored to death of life! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Fine Interesting Notes Professor Europe

He went on talking to me in the darkness, while I retraced the steps of my past with the sound of his voice as a charm with which to open the doors of the years and months and finally of my days, wondering where I could have run into this man. But I found nothing. No answer. You can lose your way groping among the shadows of the past. It's frightening how many people and things there are in a man's past that have stopped moving. The living people we've lost in the crypts of time sleep so soundly side by side with the dead that the same darkness envelops them all. As we grow older, we no longer know whom to awaken, the living or the dead. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Past Days Wondering Talking Retraced

It happened, you see, after the war, when I saw people making money while the others were dying in the trenches. You saw it and you couldn't do anything about it. Then later I was at the League of Nations, and there I saw the light. I really saw the world was ruled by the Golden Calf, by Mammon! Oh, no kidding! Implacably. Social consciousness certainly came to me late. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Happened War Trenches People Making

A little inventor, that's it! ... of a little gimmick! ... just a little gimmick that's all! ... I don't fling out messages to the world! ... not me, no sir! I don't clutter up the air with my thoughts! not me! I don't get high on words, nor on port, nor on the flattery of youth! ... I don't cogitate for the universe. I'm just a little inventor, of a two-bit gimmick at that! and that won't last long! like everything else! like the swivel-stem collar button! I'm aware of my paltry importance! anything rather than ideas! ... I leave ideas to the flea merchants! all ideas! to the hucksters, the pimps, the confusion mongers! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Gimmick Ideas Inventor World Sir

I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Solitude Crawled Back Delighted Observe

As long as we're young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the scene, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you've come to. There's no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales; if you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Young Indifference Caddishness Inexperience Manage

You know about innards? The trick they play on tramps in the country? They stuff an old wallet with putrid chicken innards. Well, take it from me, a man is just like that, except that he's fatter and hungrier and can move around, and inside there's a dream. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Innards Country Trick Play Tramps

There's something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't even try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Bed Sad People Give Damn

The religion of the flag promptly replaced the cult of heaven, an old cloud which had already been deflated by the Reformation and reduced to a network of episcopal money boxes. In olden times the fanatical fashion was: 'Long live Jesus! Burn the heretics!' . . . But heretics, after all, were few and voluntary . . . Whereas today vast hordes of men are fired with aim and purpose by cries of 'Hang the limp turnips! The juiceless lemons! The innocent readers! By the millions, eyes right!' If anybody doesn't want to fight or murder, grab 'em, tear 'em to pieces! Kill them in thirteen juicy ways. For a starter, to teach them how to live, rip their guts out of their bodies, their eyes out of their sockets, and the years out of their filthy slobbering lives! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Reformation Heaven Boxes Religion Flag

The whole business of your life overwhelms you when you live alone. One's stupefied by it. To get rid of it you try to daub some of it off on to people who come to see you, and they hate that. To be alone trains one for death. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Business Life Overwhelms Live Stupefied

They were conscientious, you couldn't deny it, and they were also flabby, heartless sons-of-bitches. In other words, they were well chosen, as mindlessly enthusiastic as any employer could dream of. Sons that would have delighted my mother, worshiping their bosses, if only she could have had one all to herself, a son she could have been proud of in the eyes of the world, a real legitimate son. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Heartless Conscientious Flabby Deny Son

Interrupted again! if it's not Jules it's the cat! that's the female speciality: interruptions! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Interrupted Interruptions Jules Cat Speciality

After all, when our egoism lets us go for a while, when it comes time to throw it off, the only women whose memory you cherish in your hearts are the ones who really loved men a little, not just one man, even if it was you, but the whole lot. When By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Man Lot Egoism Time Throw

Of course the people in the metro didn't see a thing! ... what a joke! petrified ratlets! but they'll still come out to refute me! make claims! ... that nothing got bombed! ... squished! powdered! that the firmament was calm, and me, I imagined the whole thing! chrysanthemums, sprays, roses! why, there's no more any such thing as sky-hooking shrapnel than there is anal ice cream! it's all in my mind! hallucinations and bullshit! what a crook! but I repeat and reassert! shrapnel and fiery lace stretched from one end of the horizon to the other! with lots of glow-worms mixed in ... and dancing purple fireflies ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Metro Thing Shrapnel Joke

Medicine is a thankless profession. When you get paid by the rich, you feel like a flunky, by the poor like a thief. How can you take a fee from people who can't afford to eat or go to the movies? Especially when they're at their last gasp. It's not easy. You let it ride. You get soft-hearted. And your ship goes down. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Medicine Profession Thankless Rich Flunky

I wish the storm would make even more of a clatter, I wish the roofs would cave in, that spring would never come again, and that the house would blow down. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Clatter Storm Make Roofs Cave

I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist any genuine realizations of our deepest character except war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Illness Nightmare Refrain Doubting Exist

We never change. Neither our socks nor our masters nor our opinions, or we're so slow about it that it's no use. We were born loyal and that's what killed us! Soldiers free of charge, heroes for everyone else, talking monkeys, tortured words, we are the minions of King Misery ... It's not a life. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Change Misery Opinions King Socks

My mother, writing from France, admonished me to take care of my health as she had during the war. My head could be all set for the guillotine, and still my mother would scold me for forgetting my muffler. She never missed an opportunity to try and convince me that the world is a kindly place and that she'd done a good job in conceiving me. This alleged Providence was the great subterfuge of maternal thoughtlessness. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine France Mother Writing Admonished War

The two of us, in the rain, went down streets of vacant lots. The sidewalks in that part of the world sink and evade your step, in winter the branches of the little ash trees at the edge hold the raindrops a long time, a tenuous fairyland trembling in the breeze. Our way back to the hospital led past a number of newly built hotels, some had names, others hadn't even gone to that much trouble. "Rooms by the week" was all they had to say for themselves. The war had suddenly emptied them of all the workers and wage slaves who had lived there. They wouldn't even come back to die. Dying is work, too, but they'd do it somewhere else. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Rain Lots Streets Vacant Back

That's the way it goes. You can't deny it, men have a hard time doing all that's demanded of them: butterflies in their youth, maggots at the end. I By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Men Butterflies Youth Maggots End

The foreground in a picture is always unattractive ... Art demands that the interest of the canvas should be placed in the far distance, where lies take refuge, those dreams which blossom out of fact and are man's only love. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Unattractive Foreground Picture Art Distance

A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple, she'll never go very far. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Cripple Woman Spends Time Worrying

I'd take cyanide no problem if it was that or throwing a cat out in the street, even a moth-eaten, mangy, caterwauling pain in the ass! I'd rather have the thing in bed with me than see it suffer on my account ... though when it comes to human beings, I'm only interested in the sick ... the ones who can stand up are nothing but mounds of vice and spite ... I don't get mixed up in their schemes ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Mangy Street Motheaten Caterwauling Ass

Whenever they get a chance, never fear, people make you waste hours and months ... they use you as a wall to bounce their bullshit off of ... blah! and blah! and blahblahblah! ... you put up with it for an hour, you'll need two weeks to recover ... blah! blah! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Blah Chance Fear People Months

The old men from the charity hospital next door would come jerking past our rooms, making useless, disjointed leaps. They'd go from room to room, spitting out gossip between their decayed teeth, purveying scraps of malignant worn-out slander. Cloistered in their official misery as in an oozing dungeon, those aged workers ruminated the layer of shit that long years of servitude deposit on men's souls. Impotent hatreds grown rancid in the pissy idleness of dormitories. They employed their last quavering energies in hurting each other a little more. In destroying what little pleasure they had left. Their last remaining pleasure! Their shriveled carcasses contained not one solitary atom that was not absolutely vicious! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Making Useless Disjointed Leaps Room

Since life consists of madness spiked with lies, the farther you are from each other the more lies you can put into it and the happier you'll be. That's only natural and normal. Truth is inedible. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lies Life Consists Madness Spiked

The best way to make a sort of peace, a fragile armistice to be sure, but precious all the same, with men, officers or not, is to let them bask and wallow in childish self-glorification. There's no such thing as intelligent vanity. It's an instinct. And you'll never find a man who is not first and formenost vain. The role of admiring doormat is about the only one that one man is glad to tolerate in another. With these soldiers I had no need to tax my imagination. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Peace Men Officers Selfglorification Make

When you're not used to comfort and good things to eat, you're intoxicated by them in no time. Truth's only too pleased to leave you. Very little is ever needed for Truth to let go of you. And after all, you're not really very keen to keep hold of it. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Eat Time Truth Comfort Good

Apparently "London" gave out my address! that's what they're saying ... not just London, though! Brazzaville, too! ... and said that I'm a dirty pornographer ... a letch besides being the most despicable traitor of the century! ... I'd make a urinal blush! that what we need is to cleanse France and the French language of this smut-writing, demoralizing, grammaclast who's sullying our sacred homeland and its literary heritage! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine London Apparently Gave Address Brazzaville

Only a complete alcoholic can think life is funny ... any life! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Funny Life Complete Alcoholic

Buy Fable! the book that rejuvenates your soul! makes your belly belly-laugh! turns your cares to dust! ... likewise your moods, woes an wounds! ... turns everything rosy, deflates spleen and bile! pocondria! not just any old work! not just any old words! Fable!You gotta be categorical. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Buy Fable Turns Soul Book

That's how I am! eyes peeled, scientific! first things first! the big ones! the small ones! ... if they're going to behead you ... for example! ... you don't take your eyes of the guillotine! ... look, the blade's dull!-Executioner! you shout, hey, you lazy fucker! don't you have anyone sharpening that thing?And the executioner scurries off, shit-assed and sheepish! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Executioner Scientific Eyes Peeled Hey

Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine November Reason Died Rave Began

The main thing isn't knowing whether you're right or wrong. That really doesn't matter ... The main thing is to keep people from bothering you ... The rest is eyewash ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Wrong Main Thing Knowing Matter

There are certain advantages in being cursed by all and sundry ... especially, it dispenses you with having to be nice to anybody ... there's nothing more emollient, stultifying, emasculating than wanting to be liked ... "not nice!" ... that does it, you're free! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sundry Advantages Cursed Nice Stultifying

You've probably noticed that after the first half-century practically everybody gets leaky, they can't keep it in ... hence the cruelty of long drawn-out meals and drinking sessions ... ships and apartment houses are the same ... everything starts to leak ... sphincters, bladders, drain pipes, bowels ... the half-century is merciless for ladies and gentlemen ... worse for dogs and cats! ... with them it comes sooner! ... five ... six years ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Leaky Noticed Practically Halfcentury Sessions

Lili, I think, saw so many human tragedies all around her ... people arranged it between them ... this was what they wanted ... none of her business ... animal miseries were different ... nobody paid any attention, but for her money only the animals counted ... time has passed, water under the bridge ... all in all I'd say she was right ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lili Human Tragedies People Wanted

The coldest most rational scientific madness is also the most intolerable. But when a man has acquired a certain ability to subsist, even rather scantily, in a certain niche with the help of a few grimaces, he must either keep at it or resign himself to dying the death of a guinea pig. Habits are acquired more quickly than courage, especially the habit of filling one's stomach. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Intolerable Coldest Rational Scientific Madness

A God who counts minutes and pennies, a desperate sensual God, who grunts like a pig. A pig with golden wings, who falls and falls, always belly side up, ready for caresses, that's him, our master. Come, kiss me. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine God Pig Pennies Counts Minutes

The nights in Billancourt were soft and sweet, enlivened now and again by those childish airplane or zeppelin alarms which provided the civilian population with thrills and self-justification. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Billancourt Sweet Enlivened Selfjustification Nights

For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow-men in peace-time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine World Peacetime Poor Major Expiring

During the whole of the fucking Middle Ages, the place where they had it off most of all was the cemeteries! ... people don't face up these odd little sides of things, leave a lot of naughty little facts in the dark out of human decency! A mistake! wrong! ... human decency never holds up! ... with me it's my enemas! the toilet! after two weeks without an enema I have nothing against dying ... and they give it to me so hot that I scream ... And in Claunau? [i.e. Dachau]You're right, you're right! I whimper, but I'm spoiled! but were you there, in Claunau? ... My ass you were! doesn't stop you from screeching your fucking lungs out as if you were the first one in and the last one out! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Ages Middle Cemeteries Claunau Place

Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren't so many of them left. Think it over ... no more syphilis, no more clap, no more typhoid ... antibiotics have taken half the tragedy out of medicine. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Prestige Left Diseases Lost Syphilis

Love is like liquor, the drunker and more impotent you are, the stronger and smarter you think yourself and the surer you are of your rights. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Love Liquor Drunker Impotent Stronger

You can be anywhere in the world ... under confetti, under bombs, in cellar or stratosphere, prison or embassy, on the equator in Trondhjem, you'll never go wrong, you'll get a direct response ... all they want of you is that famous Parisian vagina! la Parisienne! your man sees himself wedged between her thighs in epileptic bliss, full nuptial flight, inundating the barisienne with his enthusiasm ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine World Trondhjem Parisienne Parisian Confetti

People cling to their rotten memories, to all their misfortunes, and you can't pry them loose. These things keep them busy. They avenge themselves for the injustice of the present by smearing the future inside them with this shit. They're cowards deep down, and just. That's their nature. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Memories Misfortunes Loose Cling

Take Marcus Aurelius! That's right! What did that old bugger do? In very similar situations! Harassed! Maligned! Transduced! On the brink of succumbing under the welter if abject plots ... of murderous perfidies! ... He withdrew, Ferdinand! ... He abandoned the steps of the Forum to the jackals! Yes! In solitude! In exile! That's where he sought his balm! That's where he found new courage! ... That's right! ... He took counsel on himself! And no one else! ... He didn't ask the mad dogs for their opinion! ... No! Faugh! ... Ah, despicable recantation! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Aurelius Marcus Ferdinand Harassed Maligned

Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Truth Death Youth Ends Earth

The rich don't have to kill to eat. They employ people, as they call it. The rich don't do evil themselves. They pay. People do all they can to please them, and everybody's happy. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Eat Rich Kill People Employ

This body of ours, this disguise put on by common jumping molecules, is in constant revolt against the abominable farce of having to endure. Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing but "us," the jerks of infinity. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Molecules Endure Body Disguise Put

Suddenly he fell asleep in the candlelight. After a while I got up to look at his face. He slept like everybody else. He looked quite ordinary. There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good from the bad. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Suddenly Candlelight Fell Asleep Face

To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Work Pain Travel Makes Imagination

Love ... is a poodle's chance of attaining the infinite ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Love Infinite Poodle Chance Attaining

A slap or a fat check is what it takes if you want to see all the passions that go beating about behind a face take a sudden tack. It's as beautiful as watching a sailing ship maneuvering in a stormy sea. The whole person keels over in the changed wind. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Tack Slap Fat Check Passions

Lovely sight, the Apocalypse! But absurdity, without limits? No Sir! there have to be certain limits ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Apocalypse Lovely Sight Limits Sir

I have never voted in my life ... I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it's certain they will win. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Voted Win Understood Idiots

The new world, the communo-bourgeois, sermonizing, Tartuffian, automobilistic, alcoholic, gluttonous and cancerous world has only two anxieties: ass and bank account ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Tartuffian Sermonizing Automobilistic Alcoholic Communobourgeois

Life must go on, even if it's no joke ... just pretend to believe in the future. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Joke Future Pretend

That was the end of the dialogue, because, I remember distinctly, he barely had time to say "What about the bread?" That was all. After that there was nothing but flame and noise. The kind of noise you wouldn't have thought possible. Our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were so full of that noise I thought it was all over and I'd turned into noise and flame myself.After a while the flame went away, the noise stayed in my head, and my arms and legs trembled as if somebody were shaking me from behind. My limbs seemed to be leaving me, but then in the end they stayed on. The smoke stung my eyes for a long time, and the prickly smell of powder and sulphur hung on, strong enough to kill all the fleas and bedbugs in the whole world. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Noise Flame Dialogue Distinctly Bread

The novel can't compete with cars, the movies, television, and liquor. A guy who's had a good feed and tanked up on good wine gives his old lady a kiss after supper and his day is over. Finished. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Television Cars Movies Liquor Compete

The forest is only waiting for their signal to start trembling, hissing, and roaring from its depths. An enormous, love-maddened, unlighted railway station, full to bursting. Whole trees bristling with living noise makers, mutilated erections, horror. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hissing Trembling Depths Lovemaddened Forest

There's a point of poverty at which the spirit isn't with the body all the time. It finds the body really too unbearable. So it's almost as if you were talking to the soul itself. And a soul's not properly responsible. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Body Time Point Poverty Spirit

Children don't know the law. Their parents slap them to teach them the law and protect them from pleasure. There's By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Children Law Pleasure Parents Slap

Note accordingly that in all countries the penalties for petty theft are extremely severe, not only as a means of defending society, but also as a stern admonition to the unfortunate to know their place, stick to their caste, and behave themselves, joyfully resigned to go on dying of hunger and misery down through the centuries forever and ever ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Note Severe Society Place Stick

The old geezer was eighty, he'd been horseback riding only last year ... now he had a different sport, he went down on all fours and the kids rode him ... "giddyap, horsie!" they whipped him with his riding whip! ... till the blood came! ... he loved it! ... all around his study! faster! faster! ... los! ... into the next room ... "witches! witches!" he yelled at them, with his bare old ass! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Eighty Year Faster Geezer Horseback

Compared with the addiction to perfect forms, cocaine is a pastime for stationmasters. But By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Compared Forms Cocaine Stationmasters Addiction

I hadn't found out yet that mankind consists of two very different races, the rich and the poor. It took me ... and plenty of other people ... twenty years and the war to learn to stick to my class and ask the price of things before touching them, let alone setting my heart on them. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Races Poor Found Mankind Consists

Things are different when you go back to them, they seem to have more power to enter into us more sadly, more deeply, more gently than before, to merge with the death which is slowly, pleasantly, sneakily growing inside us, and which we train ourselves to resist a little less each day. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Pleasantly Things Sadly Deeply Slowly

Chin up, Ferdinand," I kept saying to myself, to keep up my courage. "What with being chucked out of everywhere, you're sure to find whatever it is that scares all those bastards so. It must be at the end of the night, and that's why they're so dead set against going to the end of the night. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Ferdinand Chin Courage Night End

One can't relive one's life. Forgiveness is not what's difficult; one's always too ready to forgive. And it does no good, that's obvious. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Relive Forgiveness Difficult Forgive

Blessed are those who can content themselves with whorehouses! Parapine, By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Parapine Blessed Whorehouses Content

"Okay! ... my three dots! have people ever reproached me for them! they've slobbered on about my three dots! ... 'Ah! his three dots! ... Ah, his three dots! ... He can't finish his sentences!' Every stupidity in the book! every one, Colonel!" "So?" "Go!pss!pss! ... piss off, Colonel! and what's your opinion, Colonel?" "Instead of those three dots, you might just as well put in a few words, that's what I feel!" By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dots Colonel Pss People Reproached

[T]he Dollar is always too light, a genuine Holy Ghost, more precious than blood. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Ghost Dollar Holy Light Blood

You can lose your way groping among the shadows of the past. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Past Lose Groping Shadows

Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Stop Truth Pain Personally Die

Lots of men are like that, their artistic leanings never go beyond a weakness for shapely thighs. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lots Thighs Men Artistic Leanings

Lie, copulate, and die. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lie Copulate Die

People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Deserve Restraint Show Delirium

Death after all is only a matter of a few hours, a few minutes, but a pension is like poverty, it lasts a whole lifetime. Rich people are drunk in a different way, they can't understand this frenzy about security. Being rich is another kind of drunkenness, the forgetful kind. That, in fact, is the whole point of getting rich: to forget. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Death Hours Minutes Poverty Lifetime

So many vaginas, stomachs, cocks, snouts, and flies you don't know what to do with them ... shovelsfull! ... but hearts? ... very rare! in the last five hundred million years too many cocks and gastric tubes to count ... but hearts? ... on your fingers! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Stomachs Snouts Shovelsfull Vaginas Hearts

Travel is very useful and it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Our own journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined. It's a novel, simply a fictitious narrative. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Travel Imagination Exercises Fatigue People

There's no tyrant like a brain. Below By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Brain Tyrant

The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Time Sadness World Succeed

Flowing water makes men meditative. They urinate with a sense of eternity like sailors. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Flowing Meditative Water Makes Men

what? When men can hate without risk, their stupidity is easily convinced, the motives supply themselves. From By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Risk Convinced Men Hate Stupidity

Poverty is a giant, it uses your face like a mop to wipe away the world's garbage. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Poverty Giant Garbage Face Mop

Two years is the time it takes to perceive at one glance, a glance as sure as instinct, the ugliness that can come over a face, even one that was delicious in its day. For By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Instinct Face Day Glance Years

They die of love - inside. After By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Inside Love Die

Well, you know ... experience is a muffled lantern that throws light only on the bearer ... it's incommunicable ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Experience Bearer Incommunicable Muffled Lantern

In fatigue and solitude men emanate the divine. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Divine Fatigue Solitude Men Emanate

The plain truth, I may as well admit it, is that I've never been really right in the head. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Truth Head Plain Admit

Our life is a journey, through winter and night, We look for our way, in a sky without light. (Song of the Swiss Guards, 1793) By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Journey Night Light Song Guards

Maybe what makes life so terribly fatiguing is nothing other than the enormous effort we make for twenty years, forty years, and more, to be reasonable, to avoid being simply, profoundly ourselves, that is, vile, ghastly, absurd. It's the nightmare of having to represent the halt subhuman we were fobbed off with as a small-size universal ideal, a superman from morning to night. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Years Vile Ghastly Absurd Forty

In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, it's indispensable. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Love Vice Sauce Flavor Indispensable

In my room I'd barely closed my eyes when the blonde from the movie house came along and sang her whole song of sorrow just for me. I helped her put me to sleep, so to speak, and succeeded pretty well ... I wasn't entirely alone ... It's not possible to sleep alone ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Room Barely Closed Eyes Blonde

He couldn't have explained this misery of his, it exceeded his education. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Education Explained Misery Exceeded

People live from one play to the next. In between, before the curtain goes up, they don't quite know what the plot will be or what part will be right for them, they stand there at a loss, waiting to see what will happen, their instincts folded up like an umbrella, squirming, incoherent, reduced to themselves, that is, to nothing. Cows without a train. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Live Play Squirming Incoherent

Whether you're making love to the ladies or postulating the infinite, you'll still get all flabby one day! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Infinite Day Making Love Ladies

A village, even a small one, takes at least all night to burn, in the end it looks like an enormous flower, then there's only a bud, and after that nothing. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Village Burn Flower Bud Small

The mind is satisfied with phrased, but not the body, the body is more fastidious, it wants muscles. A body always tells the truth, that's why it's usually depressing and disgusting to look at. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Body Phrased Fastidious Muscles Mind

That street was like a dismal gash, endless, with us at the bottom of it, filling it from side to side, advancing from sorrow to sorrow, toward an end that is never in sight, the end of all the streets in the world. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Endless Side Sorrow End Gash

Love, Arthur, is a poodle's chance of attaining the infinite, and personally I have my pride. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Arthur Love Infinite Pride Poodle

An unfamiliar city is a fine thing. That's the time and place when you can suppose that all the people you meet are nice. It's dream time. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Thing Unfamiliar City Fine Time

But women aren't just bodies! ... boor! they're "companions" as well! what of their charms, their grace, their twitterings? sure, sure! if suicide appeals to you ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Bodies Women Boor Companions Charms

Beauty is like drink or comfort, once you get used to it, you stop paying attention. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Beauty Comfort Attention Drink Stop

A man should be resigned to knowing himself a little better each day if he hasn't got the guts to put an end to his sniveling once and for all. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Man Resigned Knowing Day Guts

Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's "yes," all's well. That is enough. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Unhappiness Straight Man Sleep Answer

The beginning of genius is being scared shitless. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Shitless Beginning Genius Scared

If you've got plenty of nerve, you're all set, because then you're entitled to do practically anything at all, you've got the majority on your side, and it's the majority who decide what's crazy and what isn't. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Majority Nerve Set Side Plenty

To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Makebelieve Philosophize Afraid Leads Cowardly

I've got quite a memory. Engraved in my mind, things are. I can't forget anything ... It's not a sign of intelligence ... Nothing to boast about, memory ... that's just how it is ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Memory Engraved Mind Things Intelligence

All in all, death is something like marriage. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Death Marriage

There's something very pleasant about a language you don't understand ... It's like a fog swirling around in our thoughts ... It's nice, it's like a dream, there's really nothing better ... It's fine as long as the words stay in the dream ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Understand Pleasant Language Dream Thoughts

Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Philosophizing Afraid Simply Cowardly Pretense

Let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Forget Word Make Business Record

Architecture is the alpha principle of all arts. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Architecture Arts Alpha Principle

Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Work Filigree Counts Written

Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Imaginary Journey Strength

Hjalmar ... is holding him, he'd put the handcuff on him ... one, not two ... he only had one ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hjalmar Holding Put Handcuff

Businessmen all think of themselves as big or little professional wizards, but in practice they usually turn out to be hopeless incompetents. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Businessmen Wizards Incompetents Big Professional

Life, the true mistress of all real men - would have tricked me as it tricks everyone else. We By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Men True Mistress Real

Pliny paid for his "phenomena"! ... I've paid a bit, too ... everything worthwhile has its cost! ... if it's free, you're down with the shithead fraternity! blabbermouths, charlatans, the whole gang! ... into the crapper with 'em! every one! right in the shitter! ... it's unlistenable! ... just a bunch of farts! ... I'm telling you! ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Phenomena Pliny Paid Bit Blabbermouths

The mania for telling lies and believing them is as contagious as the itch. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Itch Mania Telling Lies Believing

A few poetic regrets, if adroitly placed, are as becoming to a woman as gossamer hair in the moonlight. What By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Regrets Moonlight Poetic Adroitly Woman

He had the same trouble as all intellectuals - he was ineffectual. He knew too many things, and they confused him. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Intellectuals Ineffectual Trouble Things Knew

Everything's permissible internally. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Internally Permissible

That's the hatred that kills you. There'll be more of it, so deep and thick there will always be some left, enough to go around ... it will ooze out over the earth ... and poison it, so nothing will grow but viciousness, among the dead, among men. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hatred Kills Left Earth Viciousness

Frankly, just between you and me, I'm ending up even worse than I started ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Frankly Started Ending Worse

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Experience Lamp Dim Lights Bears

When you stay too long in the same place, things and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benefit. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Place Things Benefit Stay Long

Silks" ... "China" ... "Men's Suits" ... but what about canes? ... or crutches? "Oh, certainly ... yes, yes, of course ... third floor ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Silks China Men Suits Canes

With two thousand years of Christianity behind him ... a man can't see a regiment of soldiers march past without going off the deep end. It starts off far too many ideas in his head. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Christianity Thousand Years End Head

I warn you that when the princes of this world start loving you it means they are going to grind you up into battle sausage. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sausage Warn Princes World Start

She robbed me blind, the bitch! ... and she's still at it! everyone who's ever done me wrong, robbed me, repudiated me, pillaged me has never suffered ... and never will suffer! you could call it their reward! ... robbing me brings you good luck! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Blind Bitch Robbed Wrong Repudiated

Now I know... we have at least two friends!... Cillie von Leiden and the hunchback... not bad in our situation... or, come right down to it, no matter where and when, peace, dead calm, wars, convulsions... so many vaginas, stomachs, cocks, snouts, and flies you don't know what to do with them... shovelsful!... but hearts?... very rare! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Leiden Friends Peace Wars Convulsions

Living, just by itself - what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredom's the usher, there all the time to spy on you; whatever happens, you've got to look as if you were awfully busy all the time doing something that's terribly exciting - or he'll come along and nibble your brain. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Living Dirge Time Boredom Life

The serious scientific public trusted him implicitly and consequently had no need to read him. If those people were to start getting critical, no further progress would be possible. They would spend a whole year over every page. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Scientific Public Trusted Implicitly Read

it's the majority who decide what's crazy and what isn't. Even By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Majority Decide Crazy

If it is your duty to croak like the toad, then go ahead! And with all your might! Make them hear you! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Toad Ahead Duty Croak Make

She was having an attack of knuckleheaded anxiety. Those attacks last a long time. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Anxiety Knuckleheaded Time Attack Attacks

They came from the four corners of the earth, driven by hunger, plague, tumors, and the cold, and stopped here. They couldn't go any futrther because of the ocean. That's France, that's the French people. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Plague Tumors Earth Driven Hunger

Everything that's important goes on in the darkness, no doubt about it. We never know anyone's real inside story. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Darkness Important Doubt Story Real

To make a long story short, you're all vile, dangerous, cowardly ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dangerous Cowardly Short Vile Make

Poverty is a giant who uses your features like a piece of cotton waste to wipe a filthy world. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Poverty World Giant Features Piece

A poor man in this world can be done to death in two main ways, by the absolute indifference of his fellows in peacetime or by their homicidal mania when there's a war. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine War Poor Man World Death

She glorified in her unmarried-mother act. In By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Act Glorified Unmarriedmother

There would be nothing but darkness, same darkness as everywhere else, an enormous darkness that swallowed up the road two steps ahead of us, only a little sliver of road about the size of your tongue was spared by the darkness. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Darkness Road Enormous Swallowed Steps

There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Great Sadism Rest Humble Despising

This instinctive repulsion which tradespeople inspire in men of sensitive feeling is one of the very rare consolations for being so impoverished which are given to those of us who don't sell anything to anybody. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Instinctive Repulsion Tradespeople Inspire Men

Love is the infinite placed within the reach of poodles. I have my dignity! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Love Poodles Infinite Reach Dignity

After conscientiously tasting fritters every day for a month Lola had put on two pounds! Her little belt bore witness to the disaster, she found herself obliged to move on to the next notch. She burst into tears. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lola Pounds Conscientiously Tasting Fritters

He's fiddling around in his pocket ... nothing to worry about ... all the young ones fiddle around in their pockets ... a pistol? an erection? By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Fiddling Pocket Pockets Worry Pistol

Telling it all after the fact ... easier said than done! ... much easier! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Telling Fact Easier

Women always have some mental reservation. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Women Reservation Mental

Nearly all a poor bastard's desires are punishable by jail. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Jail Poor Bastard Desires Punishable

I was a hundred-percent sick, I felt as if I had no further use for my legs, they just hung over the edge of my bed like unimportant and rather ridiculous objects. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sick Legs Objects Hundredpercent Felt

All the currencies of Europe are relatives of the Dollar. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Dollar Europe Currencies Relatives

The poetry of heroism holds an irresistible appeal for people who aren't involved in a war, especially when they're making piles of money out of one. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine War Poetry Heroism Holds Irresistible

My trouble is insomnia. If I had always slept properly, I'd never have written a line. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Insomnia Trouble Properly Line Slept

An Immense hatred keeps me alive ... i would live for a thousand years if i were certain of seeing the whole world croak. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Immense Alive Hatred Croak Live

Sooner or later people are bound to classify you as something. I By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sooner People Bound Classify

The more one is hated, I find, the happier one is. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hated Find Happier

I do not like war, because war happens in the countryside, and the countryside bores me. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Countryside War Bores

I'd seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I'd better go out, I said to myself, I'd better go out again. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Mind Troubling Things Easy Knew

Life is a classroom and boredom is the monitor. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Monitor Classroom Boredom

Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Poor People Explanation Put Hate

You don't lose much when the landlord's house burns down. Another landlord will always turn up, unless it's the same one, German or French, English or Chinese, to collect the rent ... In marks or francs? What difference does it make, seeing you've got to pay ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Landlord German French English Chinese

The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Truth Agony Death Endless

Priests know how to bury the worst scandals. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Priests Scandals Bury Worst

We're even more dazed than usual. Here we sit, empty, bewildered, contented. We have nothing to talk about, because nothing happens to us anymore, we're too poor, maybe life is sick of us. Why not? By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Usual Dazed Empty Bewildered Contented

There's no tyrant like a brain. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Brain Tyrant

That is perhaps what we seek throughout life, that and nothing more, the greatest possible sorrow so as to become fully ourselves before dying. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Life Dying Seek Greatest Sorrow

We are so trivial by nature that only amusements can stop us from dying for real. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Real Trivial Nature Amusements Stop

Most people don't die until the last moment; others start twenty years in advance, sometimes more. Those are the unfortunates. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Moment Advance People Die Start

People, countries, and objects all end up as smells. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Countries Smells Objects End

There's no such thing as intelligent vanity. It's an instinct. And you'll never find a man who is not first and foremost vain. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Vanity Thing Intelligent Instinct Vain

At ninety-eight point six everything is boring. Yet By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Boring Ninetyeight Point

If you aren't rich you should always look useful. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Rich

There won't be any love to spare in this world as long as there's five francs. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Francs Love Spare World Long

You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sex Virgin Horror

Nothing brings memories to the surface like smells and flames. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Flames Brings Memories Surface Smells

The mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than defecation. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Defecation Mechanical Effort Conversation Nastier

My one and only chicken, bequeathed to me by Robinson, dreaded the noon hour the same as I did, he'd go back in with me. For three weeks the chicken lived with me like that, following me like a dog, clucking constantly, seeing snakes wherever he went. One day of extreme boredom, I ate him. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Robinson Bequeathed Dreaded Chicken Noon

I piss on you all from a considerable height. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Height Piss Considerable

You have to choose: death or lies. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Choose Death Lies

Maybe that's what we look for all our lives, the worst possible grief, to make us truly ourselves before we die. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Lives Grief Die Worst Make

To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Reality Hell Music Prose Die

Our trouble isn't lack of perseverance, it's that we're not on the right road that leads to an easy death. Going By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Perseverance Death Trouble Lack Road

The mother sensed her daughter's animal superiority and instinctively condemned it out of hand, the unforgettable depth of her fucking, her way of coming like a continent! By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Hand Fucking Continent Mother Sensed

It is of men, and of them only, that one should always be frightened. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Men Frightened

Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Offence Desire Poor Man Punishable

All that makes a lunatic are the very ordinary ideas of mankind shut up inside a man's head. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Head Makes Lunatic Ordinary Ideas

Near the kiosk the old lady who sold refreshments seemed slowly to be gathering all the shadows of evening about her skirts. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Skirts Kiosk Lady Sold Refreshments

When it becomes really impossible to get away and sleep, then the will to live evaporates of its own accord. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Sleep Accord Impossible Live Evaporates

History doesn't pass the dishes again. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine History Pass Dishes

Wherever you may be, the moment you draw the attention of the authorities, the best thing you can do is disappear in a hurry. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Authorities Hurry Moment Draw Attention

The soul is the body's vanity and pleasure as long as the body's in good health, but it's also the urge to escape from the body as soon as the body is sick or things go badly. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Body Health Badly Soul Vanity

People avenge themselves for the favors done them. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine People Avenge Favors

It's harder to lose the wish to love than the wish to live. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Live Harder Lose Love

Anybody who talks about the future is a bastard, it's the present that counts. Invoking posterity is like making speeches to worms. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Bastard Counts Talks Future Present

To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Put Trust Men Killed

Troubles are as endless as pleasures are brief ... By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Troubles Endless Pleasures

At the bottom of all music you have to hear the tune without notes, made just for us, the tune of Death. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Death Tune Notes Made Bottom

That's what life is, a bit of light that ends in darkness. But By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Darkness Life Bit Light Ends

In circumstances of real tragedy you see things straight away ... past, present, and future together. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Past Present Circumstances Real Tragedy

They'd put their flesh and spirit into that house of theirs, like a snail. But the snail doesn't know what he's doing. The By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Snail Put Flesh Spirit House

Men are the thing to be afraid of, always, men and nothing else. By Louis-Ferdinand Celine Men Thing Afraid