Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

59 quotes

“I should be able to get the alligators to dance to the tune of the pan pipe.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (March 30, 1947)
“I should give all the works of Baudelaire for a female Olympic swimmer.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Des pays où personne ne va jamais. Interview of February 1960 with Jean Guenot und Jacques d'Arribehaude.
“God is being repaired.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L'École des cadavres (School for Corpses), Denoël 1942, p. 6
“Hate gave birth to the slang; Slang (‘argot’) exists not anymore.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ( « L'argot est né de la haine, il n'existe plus» Arts, 6. February 1957. in À l’agité du bocal et autres textes, (op. cit.) p. 55.
“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 Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in Albert Paraz, Le Gala des Vaches, Éditions de l’Élan, Paris, 1948 ; À l'agité du bocal, et autres textes de L.-F. Céline, l'Herne / Carnets de l'Herne , 2006, 85 p. ; To the Fidgeting Lunatic (Céline on Sartre), tran…
“You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget, especially the things that have done you in, and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess. When the grave lies open before us, let’s not try to be witty, but record the worst of human viciousness we’ve seen without changing one word. When that’s done, we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit. That’s work enough for a lifetime.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anybody who talks about the future is a bastard, it's the present that counts.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as they were concerned, gunfire was nothing but noise. That’s why wars can keep going. Even the people who make them, who fight in them, don’t really get the picture. Even with a bullet in their gut, they’d go on picking up old shoes that “might come in handy.” The way a sheep, lying on its side in a meadow, will keep on grazing with its dying breath. Most people don’t die until the last moment; others start twenty years in advance, sometimes more. Those are the unfortunates.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The one thing any of us really cared about was living for one more hour, one more hour is a big deal in a world where everything has reduced itself to murder.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't think about anything," he says, "No thoughts at all! I think about not getting killed... that keeps me busy... One more day is one more day-That's what I think!”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believed in her body, I didn't believe in her soul. I thought of Lola as a charming goldbrick, miles away from the war, miles away from life.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 7, p. 69 (tr. 1934, ed. 1966)
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.[16]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are, by nature, so futile that distraction alone can prevent us from dying altogether.[17]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love is infinity - come down to poodles' level.[1]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's harder to lose the wish to love than the wish to live.[7]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Living, just by itself - what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and boredom's 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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple; she'll never go very far.― [7]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you aren't rich you should always look useful.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“- (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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rich don't have to kill to eat." – [30]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Politics has putrified mankind more profoundly in the last three centuries than in the whole of pre-history. We were more united in the middle ages than we are today; then a common spirit took form.[16]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since the end of the period of belief, leaders exalt every defect, every kind of sadism, and gain all the more through their vices: vanity, ambition, war, death in a word.[16]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Industrialized man, drunk on alcohol and gasoline, becomes a confusion of sheep, bull and hyena.] Charming. The least obstructed little asshole looks on himself in the mirror as Jupiter.[18]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“{Music symbolizes the loss of faith, of common belief.] The small, intimate church is closed, the organs are dead, it is sadder than before. Only those whom fate designs for the eternal mass of infinite love remain. They compose only a very small chapel of clarity in space and time.[45]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this society which we are induced to frequent, composed above all of politicians and artists, one cannot realize one's true worth.[99]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in the United States that one may better see, if one has the taste for it, the vast Jewish panic, the mad anguish that strangles, the camouflaged arrogance, at the slightest evocation of a possibility of their regulation for the general world-wide good.[50]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The three radios, the six cars, the four refrigerators, the seven telephones in each of the 300,000 Jewish households, and the super-television![51]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...personally I find Hitler, Franco, Mussolini fabulously debonaire, admirably magnanimous, infinitely more sympathetic...than 250 Nobel Prize winners.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The judeo-Americans are notorious idiots, bellylanding in foolishness: look at Roosevelt, Otto Khan, Morgenthau, Filene, Barush, Rosenthal...Observe these cunts. [75]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The fascist states want no war] Why? Because the fascist states realize before our very eyes, among Aryans, without gold, without Jews, without Freemasons, the famous socialist program, of which the communists have had their mugs full and have never brought off. [100]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your system of producing wealth, factories, mines, cooperatives will fall apart, like everything else, under the attacks of the people, in the delirious, popular boulimia. [101]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Spiritually we are at ground zero, sunk, bored to perdition. All our arts prove it. Since the renaissance, so mechanized, we repeat with almost futile variants the same hackneyed sentimentalities (we call them eternal values!) Love! Re-love No Love! More Love! [102]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the material bungling, the ladder-climbing and the shit, you are going marvelously to be served! Shitty! You yourselves are promised to the revolutionary puppies! Bulging eyed, aberrant, pontificating, cock-up cancers, you committed at the outset the capital, inexpiable mistake: you have bet according to your guts, you have adulated, exalted, fawned on and glorified your tripes.[105]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You pin-heads, you have not understood in communism its admirable, instantaneous manner of appeasing all your ruined tax-payer grudges ferociously, in the name of a new purity, a non-existent proletarian virtue, you deceived jackals. Your intimate personal plan won't wash. I am well acquainted with you. [128]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all communism is a poetic vocation. Without poetry, without a burning, purifying altruistic fervor, communism is only a farce, the receptacle of all anger, of all plebian resentment, the decadent playhouse of sharks, of all the tragic pimps, of all Jews, performing their Talmudic imposture. [130]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The populace is a true museum of all the stupidities of the ages: it swallows everything, it admires everything, it preserves everything, it defends everything, it understands nothing. [145]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The press from right to left, is corrupt. It will say anything if the bribe is large enough]...gloss over events according to the color of the subsidy, undress, attack, traduce, rant, all according to the sum in the envelope. [177]”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source