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

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

...she robbed me blind, the bitch!...and she's still at it! Everyone who's ever done me wrong, robbed me, repudiated me, pillaged me has never suffered...and will never suffer! You could call it their reward!...robbing me brings you good luck!

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The forest is only waiting for their signal to start trembling, hissing, and roaring from its depths. An enormous, love-maddened, unlighted railway station, full to bursting. Whole trees bristling with living noisemakers, mutilated erections, horror.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The mother was looking at nothing and listening to nothing but herself. “It’ll kill me, doctor! I’ll die of shame!” I made no attempt to dissuade her. Furthermore, I didn’t know what to do. We could see the father pacing back and forth in the little dining room next door. Apparently he hadn’t finished composing his attitude for the occasion. Maybe he was waiting for things to come to a head before selecting a posture. He was in a kind of limbo. People live from one play to the next. In between, before the curtain goes up, they don’t quite know what the plot will be or what part will be right for them, they stand there at a loss, waiting to see what will happen, their instincts folded up like an umbrella, squirming, incoherent, reduced to themselves, that is, to nothing. Cows without a train.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

There's something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't even try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

There would be nothing but darkness, same darkness as everywhere else, an enormous darkness that swallowed up the road two steps ahead of us, only a little sliver of road about the size of your tongue was spared by the darkness.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The rich don't have to kill to eat. They employ people, as they call it. The rich don't do evil themselves. They pay. People do all they can to please them, and everybody's happy.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline