Quotes from Louis-Ferdinand Celine

it's the majority who decide what's crazy and what isn't. Even

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.

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.

This world, I assure you, is only a vast device for kidding the world!

A slave must at all costs be slightly, if not superlatively, contemptible. An assortment of chronic moral and physical defects justifies the horrible treatment he is getting. Then the earth turns more smoothly, for each man occupies the place he deserves. A person you make use of should

Cuando a los grandes de este mundo les da por amaros, es que van a convertiros en carne de cañón

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! . . .

I do not like war, because war happens in the countryside, and the countryside bores me.

Just plain living, what a drag! Life is a classroom, and boredom is the monitor, always keeping an eye on you, you have to look busy at all costs, busy with something fascinating, otherwise he comes and corrodes your brain. A day that's nothing more than a lapse of twenty-four hours is intolerable.

She glorified in her unmarried-mother act. In

his face had the terrifying look of an undeniable murderer, or rather, to be fair, the look of a reckless man in a terrible hurry to get ahead—which amounts to the same thing.

The system proved successful … pretty soon they were mass-producing heroes, and in the end, the system was so well perfected that they cost practically nothing. Everyone was delighted. Bismarck, the two Napoleons, Barres,* Elsa the Horsewoman.* The religion of the flag promptly replaced the cult of heaven

A wise man looks the other way.

Life, the true mistress of all real men—would have tricked me as it tricks everyone else. We

Our hospital was clean. You have to hurry to see that kind of thing, move in at the beginning, the first few weeks, because maintenance isn't a French virtue, we have no taste for it, in fact, we're downright disgusting in that respect. We flopped on six metal beds, at random and by moonlight, the building was so new the electricity

That's what life is, a bit of light that ends in darkness. But

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.

Suffering exhibits itself; pleasure and the needs of the flesh hang their heads in shame.

Louis XIV lui au moins, qu'on se souvienne, s'en foutait à tout rompre du bon peuple. Quant à Louis XV, du même. Il s'en barbouillait le pourtour anal.

It's hard to get animals to reproduce in a zoo, but people, even condemned to death, even hunted by Leclerc's army, with the woods full of Fifis and the whole R.A.F on top of them thundering day and night, don't lose their desire to squirt! not in the least...

At a certain age, especially after certain hardships, you only want one thing: to be left alone! ...or better still, you'd like people to think you're dead! in a recent poll on 'what the young people think', they all thought I was dead... died in the Greenland! Not bad!

Les vivants qu'on égare dans les cryptes du temps dorment si bien avec les morts qu'une même ombre les confond déjà.

Sophie, as I'd noticed on other occasions, needed time to get her emotions started. Not that she was cold. When it hit her, it was like a ton of bricks, but she needed time.

Toute possibilité de lâcheté devient une magnifique espérance à qui s'y connaît. C'est mon avis. Il ne faut jamais se montrer difficile sur le moyen de se sauver de l'étripade, ni perdre son temps non plus à rechercher les raisons d'une persécution dont on est l'objet. Y échapper suffit au sage