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Journey to the End of the Night

Book by Louis-Ferdinand Céline · 3 quotes · Celine, Age, Death

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Journey to the End of the Night Quotes

“I’d pretty well come to the point- the age you might say- when a man knows what he’s losing with every hour that passes. But he hasn't yet built up the wisdom to pull up sharp on the road of time. And anyway, even if you did stop, you wouldn't know what to do without the frenzy for going forward that possesses you and has won your admiration ever since you were young. Even now, you're not as pleased with your youth as you once were. But you don’t yet dare admit that youth may be nothing more than a hurry to grow old.”

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“When, grown older, we look back on the selfishness of the people who’ve been mixed up with our lives, we see it undeniably for what it was, as hard as steel or platinum and a lot more durable than time itself. As long as we’re young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the score, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you’ve come to. There’s no mystery about it, no more room for fairy tales; if you’ve lived this long, it’s because you’ve squashed any poetry you had in you. Life is keeping body and soul together.”

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