Blaise Cendrars

“As a special branch of general philosophy, pathogenesis had never been explored. In my opinion it had never been approached in a…

— Blaise Cendrars

Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose…

— Blaise Cendrars

The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

— Blaise Cendrars

“and only much later, when Mascha wanted a child, did I realize that love is a deadly poison, a vice, a vice…

— Blaise Cendrars

I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious,…

— Blaise Cendrars

“Feelings flake off and fall in dust. The senses, vitrified, can no longer experience pleasure; they crack at the least provocation. Each…

— Blaise Cendrars

“Do not forget that when the heart petrifies there is no progress. All science must be like a fruit, so ordered that…

— Blaise Cendrars

“Each of us attempted to stem & hold fast the unending flood of his thoughts which tended to trickle off into that…

— Blaise Cendrars

Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal…

— Blaise Cendrars

Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.

— Blaise Cendrars

“you make me laugh, with your metaphysical anguish, its just that you're scared silly, frightened of life, of men of action, of…

— Blaise Cendrars

“Modern man has a need for simplification that tends to find its expression one way or another. And this artificial monotony which…

— Blaise Cendrars

One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners…

— Blaise Cendrars

Writing is a noble privilege compared with the lot of most people, who live like parts of a machine, who live only…

— Blaise Cendrars

“But me no buts, we're going to make whoopee, I tell you.”

— Blaise Cendrars

“Haven't you got it through your head that human thought is a thing of the past & that philosophy is worse than…

— Blaise Cendrars

A mud-stained sunlight began to splatter the sodden fields, and the hateful, nasal world of birds began to come to life. It…

— Blaise Cendrars

I'm not an extraordinary worker, I'm an extraordinary daydreamer. I exceed all my fantasies-even that of writing.

— Blaise Cendrars

“The guillotine is the masterpiece of the plastic arts Its click Creates perpetual motion ("The Head")”

— Blaise Cendrars

“Now, the drug is taboo. You do not fool around with it. You give yourself to it and you are caught. I…

— Blaise Cendrars

“...Is there a more monstrous thought, a more convincing spectacle, a more patent affirmation of the impotence and madness of the brain?…

— Blaise Cendrars

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out…

— Blaise Cendrars

For action, whatever its immediate purpose, also implies relief at doing something, anything, and the joy of exertion. This is the optimism…

— Blaise Cendrars

what are you looking for? There is no Truth. There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral action, action subjected…

— Blaise Cendrars

“Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?' Worries Forget your worries All the stations full of cracks tilted along the…

— Blaise Cendrars