Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I should be able to get the alligators to dance to the tune of the pan pipe.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I should give all the works of Baudelaire for a female Olympic swimmer.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

God is being repaired.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Hate gave birth to the slang; Slang (‘argot’) exists not anymore.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I clearly see you a tapeworm, but not a cobra, not a cobra at all...no good at the flute! (…) I’ll go applaud you when you finally become a true monster, when you’ll have paid them, the witches, what you have to, their price, so they transmute you, blossom you, into a true phenomenon. Into a tapeworm that plays the flute. (To the Fidgeting Lunatic)

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I believed in her body, I didn't believe in her soul. I though of Lola as a charming goldbrick, miles away from the war, miles away from life.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

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

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Then I fell sick, I was delirious, driven mad by fear, they said at the hospital. Maybe so. 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.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Everything interesting takes place in the dark; there is no doubt about it. We know nothing of the true story of the men. ― [6]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.[16]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

We are, by nature, so futile that distraction alone can prevent us from dying altogether.[17]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Love is infinity - come down to poodles'level.[1]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

It's harder to lose the wish to love than the wish to live.[7]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Living, just by itself - what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredoms 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.[32]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

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. [4]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple; she'll never go very far.― [7]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

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. ― [6]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

If you aren't rich you should always look useful.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavour, it's indispensable." ― [6]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

-\t (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! ― [6]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

"The rich don't have to kill to eat." – [30]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

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 Celine

I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist other genuine realizations of our deepest character than war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare.[39]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

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.[12]

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Why struggle, waiting is good enough, since thievery is bound to end up in the street. Basically, only the street counts. Why deny it? It's waiting for us. One of these days we'll have to make up our minds and go down in to the street, not one or two or three of us, but all. We stand on the brink, we simper and fuss, but never mind, the time will come.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine