67
" O kudurmuşlar, yine aynıları yani, 1914'teki rezaletten sonra 1939'da daha beter, daha uzun, daha kanlı ve daha bol cesetli, kopan kollu bacaklı bir dünya savaşı daha çıkarmamışlar mıydı, hem de daha ölümcül ve etkisi uzun ömürlü bombalar bile icat ederek? O gün bugün de güya çaktırmadan devam etmiyorlar mıydı sanki dünyanın her bir köşesinde savaş oyunlarına? o kokuşmuş "değerler", her türlü milliyetçilikler, militarizmler, katı inançlar, sömürgecilik ve vahşi kapitalizm, varoşların sefaleti, insan ruhunun kepazeliği, itaati, boyun eğişi, birbirini kazıklayışı, acımasızlığı, sevgisizliği, bütün bunlar hâlâ her yerde hüküm sürmüyor muydu yetmiş yıldır, şu mide bulandırıcı ve kanlı bir katliam lağımına dönüşmüş, barbarlığı küreselleştirip "global" rütbesine terfi etmiş dünyada? "
― Yiğit Bener , Journey to the End of the Night
70
" There is 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 ever try to understand what we’re here for. They just don’t care. Americans or not, they sleep no matter what, they’re bloated mollusks, no sensibility, no trouble with their conscience.
I’d seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I’d better go out, I said to myself, I’d better go out again. Maybe I’ll meet Robinson. Naturally that was an idiotic idea, but I dreamed it up as an excuse for going out again, because no matter how I tossed and turned on my narrow bed, I couldn’t snatch the tiniest scrap of sleep. Even masturbation, at times like that, provides neither comfort nor entertainment. Then you're really in despair. "
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline , Journey to the End of the Night
77
" When you stop to examine the way in which our words are formed and uttered, our sentences are hard-put to it to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins. The mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than defecation. That corolla of bloated flesh, the mouth, which screws itself up to whistle, which sucks in breath, contorts itself, discharges all manner of viscous sounds across a fetid barrier of decaying teeth—how revolting! Yet that is what we are adjured to sublimate into an ideal. It's not easy. Since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall always have trouble with sentiment. Being in love is nothing, its sticking together that's difficult. Feces on the other hand make no attempt to endure or grow. On this score we are far more unfortunate than shit; our frenzy to persist in ourpresent state—that's the unconscionable torture.
Unquestionably we worship nothing more divine than our smell. All our misery comes from wanting at all costs to go on being Tom, Dick, or Harry, year in year out. This body of ours, this disguise put on by common jumping molecules, is in constant revolt against the abominable farce of having to endure. Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing but 'us,' the jerks of infinity. We'd burst if we had the courage, day after day we come very close to it. The atomic torture we love so is locked up inside us by our pride. "
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline , Journey to the End of the Night