To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.
Louis-Ferdinand CelineRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the harsh reality of truth and the existential struggle between truth and lies in life.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's quote explores the profound and often painful nature of truth, suggesting that confronting it can lead to a sense of despair. He implies that in a world where the 'music' of life has faded, individuals may feel compelled to choose between the starkness of reality and the comforting illusions of lies, with an emphasis on the burden of truth being akin to a slow death.
Themes
TruthLiesExistentialPainDespair
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate about the roles of truth in society, this quote could emphasize the cost of confronting reality.
More from Louis-Ferdinand Celine
All quotes →In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, it’s indispensable.
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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
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Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
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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.
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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!
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