Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

"Anybody who talks about the future is a bastard, it's the present that counts. Invoking posterity is like making speeches to worms."

"Chin up, Ferdinand," I kept saying to myself, to keep up my courage. "What with being chucked out of everywhere, you're sure to find whatever it is that scares all those bastards so. It must be at the end of the night, and that's why they're so dead set against going to the end of the night."

"You know about innards? The trick they play on tramps in the country? They stuff an old wallet with putrid chicken innards. Well, take it from me, a man is just like that, except that he's fatter and hungrier and can move around, and inside there's a dream."

"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."

"A woman who spends her time worrying about pregnancy is a virtual cripple, she'll never go very far."

"It is of men, and of them only, that one should always be frightened."

"The mind is satisfied with phrased, but not the body, the body is more fastidious, it wants muscles. A body always tells the truth, that's why it's usually depressing and disgusting to look at."

"There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism."

"And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I’ve never been able to kill myself."

"Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

"Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere."