Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

21 Sourced Quotes

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Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offense.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
- (Lola): Only mad men and cowards refuse to go to the war, when their homeland is in danger! - (Bardamu): So, hurrah for the mad men and the cowards! ―

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Everything interesting takes place in the dark; there is no doubt about it. We know nothing of the true story of the men. ―

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
When men can hate without risk, their stupidity is easily convinced, the motives supply themselves.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple; she'll never go very far.―

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Those who talk about the future are scoundrels. It is the present that matters. To evoke one's posterity is to make a speech to maggots.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist other genuine realizations of our deepest character than war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The rich are inebriate in another way and cannot contrive to grasp these frenzied longings for security. To be rich is another form of intoxication: it spells forgetfulness. In fact, that is what one wants riches for: to forget.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There's very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who's had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
It's harder to lose the wish to love than the wish to live.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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. ―

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The natives, by and large, had to be driven to work with clubs, they preserved that much dignity, whereas the whites, perfected by public education, worked of their own free will.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Love, Arthur, is a poodle's chance of attaining the infinite, and personally I have my pride.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The one who talks about the future is a rascal. The present is the only thing that matters. To invoke one's posterity is to make a speech to maggots.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
We are, by nature, so futile that distraction alone can prevent us from dying altogether.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavour, it's indispensable. ―

Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline