Louis-Ferdinand Celine

“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!”

“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.”

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

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

“Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.”