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

- Blaise Cendrars

Humanity lives in its fiction.

- Blaise Cendrars

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

- Blaise Cendrars

Life The machine The human soul A 75mm breech My portrait

- 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, too narrow. Prose is more o…

- Blaise Cendrars

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

- Blaise Cendrars

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

- 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 seemed to me that I was c…

- Blaise Cendrars

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

- Blaise Cendrars