Louis-Ferdinand Celine Quotes

France, Novelist
May 27, 1894 – July, 1, 1961.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline (French: [selin] (About this sound listen)) was the pen name of Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (pronounced [detuʃ]; 27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), a French novelist, pamphleteer and physician. He developed a new style of writing that modernized French literature. His most famous work is the 1932 novel, Journey to the End of the Night.

Also known as Physician

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Past
- Deep
- March
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.

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!

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- People
- Music
- Reality
Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Life
- Work
Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Desire
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.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Life
- Good
- Forgiveness
If you aren't rich you should always look useful.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Experience

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.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- World
- Truth
- Stop
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 Celine
- War
- Poetry
To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Believe