“ Maybe my dissertation really had been as brilliant as he claimed, the truth was I remember almost nothing about it; the intellectual leaps I made when I was young were a distant memory to me, and now… Michel Houellebecq
“ An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really,… Michel Houellebecq
“ What about you, Michel, what are you going to do here?'The response closest to the truth was probably something like 'Nothing'; but it's always difficult to explain that kind of thing to an active per… Michel Houellebecq
“ The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity—which is what, more or less, all teenage girls are. Michel Houellebecq
“ Your only chance of survival, if you are severely smitten, lies in hiding this fact from the woman you love, of feigning a casual detachment under all circumstances. What sadness there is in this simp… Michel Houellebecq
“ They were really willing to pay to avoid any trouble. No doubt they had overestimated the ability of academics to make a nuisance of themselves. It had been years since an academic title gained you ac… Michel Houellebecq
“ He was a kind of éminence grise, a political leader, in a clandestine movement. Everyone knows there are girls who go for that kind of thing. There are girls who go for Huysmanists, for that matter. I… Michel Houellebecq
“ I am persuaded that feminism is not at the root of political correctness. The actual source is much nastier and dares not speak its name, which is simply hatred for old people. The question of dominat… Michel Houellebecq
“ I think she is going to find you too old... Yes that was it, the moment she said it I knew it was true, and the revelation caused me no surprise, it was like the echo of a dull, not unexpected shock.… Michel Houellebecq
“ As I finished my rice, I sketched out the plot of a pornographic adventure film called The Massage Room. Sirien, a young girl from northern Thailand, falls hopelessly in love with Bob, an American stu… Michel Houellebecq
“ The Enlightened One, if he had meditated on it, would not necessarily have rejected a technical solution. Michel Houellebecq
“ Two years before, when the riots started, the media had had a field day, but now people discussed them less and less. ... ...in fact the media's attitude had changed over the last few months. No one t… Michel Houellebecq
“ People like to be listened to, as every researcher knows – every researcher, every writer, every spy. Michel Houellebecq
“ The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes. Whether the life is tragic or enlightened, the classic gravestone inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death has, in i… Michel Houellebecq
“ To love a book is, above all, to love its author: we want to meet him again, we want to spend our days with him. Michel Houellebecq
“ A woman is human, obviously, but she represents a slightly different kind of humanity. Michel Houellebecq
“ Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit. Michel Houellebecq
“ Contemporary consciousness is no longer equipped to deal with our mortality. Never in any other time, or any other civilization, have people thought so much or so contantly about aging. Each individua… Michel Houellebecq
