The collection / 48 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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02Undated

Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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03Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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04Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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05Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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06Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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07Undated

Life must go on, even if it's no joke...just pretend to believe in the future.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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08Undated

It is of men, and of them only, that one should always be frightened.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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09Undated

People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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10Undated

"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!

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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11Undated

A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple, she'll never go very far.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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12Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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13Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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14Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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15Undated

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...

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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16Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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17Undated

Anybody who talks about the future is a bastard, it's the present that counts. Invoking posterity is like making speeches to worms.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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18Undated

...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!

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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19Undated

Now was the time to make quick tracks. Back to Fort-Gono, retrace my steps? Try to explain my conduct and the circumstances of the present disaster? I hesitated . . . Not for long. Nothing can be explained. The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you, as a sleeper kills his fleas. That would be a stupid way to die, I said to myself, to let myself be crushed like everybody else. To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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20Undated

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

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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21Undated

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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22Undated

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...

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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23Undated

You can lose your way groping among the shadows of the past.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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24Undated

...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!

Louis-Ferdinand Céline / quote

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