Louis Ferdinand Celine

“The more one is hated, I find, the happier one is.”

“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!”

“Love, Arthur, is a poodle's chance of attaining the infinite, and personally I have my pride.”

“Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's 'yes', all's well. That is enough.”

“The poetry of heroism appeals irresitably to those who don't go to a war, and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy"

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren't so many of them left. Think it over... no more syphilis, no more clap, no more typhoid... antibiotics have taken half the tragedy out of medicine.”

“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.”

“The foreground in a picture is always unattractive. . . Art demands that the interest of the canvas should be placed in the far distance, where lies take refuge, those dreams which blossom out of fact and are man's only love.”

" 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."