Quotes from book
Journey to the End of the Night

Journey to the End of the Night
Louis-ferdinand Céline Original title Voyage au bout de la nuit (French, 1932)

Journey to the End of the Night is the first novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work follows the life of Ferdinand Bardamu.

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“The plain truth, I may as well admit it, is that I've never been really right in the head.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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 book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“That is perhaps what we seek throughout life, that and nothing more, the greatest possible sorrow so as to become fully ourselves before dying.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“Love is like liquor, the drunker and more impotent you are, the stronger and smarter you think yourself and the surer you are of your rights.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“Lots of men are like that, their artistic leanings never go beyond a weakness for shapely thighs.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

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

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“A man should be resigned to knowing himself a little better each day if he hasn't got the guts to put an end to his sniveling once and for all.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

12
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“(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!”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

[6]
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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 book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Chapter 3

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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 book Journey to the End of the Night

Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“And the music came back with the carnival, the music you've heard as far back as you can remember, ever since you were little, that's always playing somewhere, in some corner of the city, in little country towns, wherever poor people go and sit at the end of the week to figure out what's become of them, sometimes here, sometimes there, from season to season, it tinkles and grinds out the tunes that rich people danced to the year before. It's the mechanical music that floats down from the wooden horses, from the cars that aren't cars anymore, from the railways that aren't at all scenic, from the platform under the wrestler who hasn't any muscles and doesn't come from Marseille, from the beardless lady, the magician who's a butter-fingered jerk, the organ that's not made of gold, the shooting gallery with the empty eggs. It's the carnival made to delude the weekend crowd. We go in and drink the beer with no head on it. But under the cardboard trees the stink of the waiter's breath is real. And the change he gives you has several peculiar coins in it, so peculiar that you go on examining them for weeks and weeks and finally, with considerable difficulty, palm them off on some beggar. What do you expect at the carnival? Gotta have what fun you can between hunger and jail, and take things as they come. No sense complaining, we're sitting down aren't we? Which ain't to be sneezed at. I saw the same old Gallery of the Nations, the one Lola caught sight of years and years ago on that avenue in the park of Saint-Cloud. You always see things again at carnivals, they revive the joy of past carnivals. Over the years the crowds must have come back time and again to stroll on the main avenue of the park of Saint-Cloud…taking it easy. The war had been over long ago. And say I wonder if that shooting gallery still belonged to the same owner? Had he come back alive from the war? I take an interest in everything. Those are the same targets, but in addition, they're shooting at airplanes now. Novelty. Progress. Fashion. The wedding was still there, the soldier too, and the town hall with its flag. Plus a few more things to shoot at than before.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

27
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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 book Journey to the End of the Night

Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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 book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Chapter 4

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“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.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

4
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“Everything interesting takes place in the dark; there is no doubt about it. We know nothing of the true story of the men.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

[6]
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“We are, by nature, so futile that distraction alone can prevent us from dying altogether.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

17
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Chapter 2

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“I believed in her body, I didn't believe in her soul. I though of Lola as a charming goldbrick, miles away from the war, miles away from life.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Chapter 5