Quotes by Michel Houellebecq

I was about as political as a bath towel.

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 simple observation! What an accusation against man! Love makes you weak, and the weaker of the two is oppressed, tortured, and finally killed by the other, who in his or her turn oppresses, tortures, and kills without having evil intentions, without even getting pleasure from it, with complete indifference; thats what men, normally, call love.

Rumor had it that he was homosexual; in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.

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.

...intimacy isnt something men talk about. They may talk about politics, literature, stocks, or sports, depending on the man, but about their love lives they keep silent, even to their dying breath.

Intimacy isn’t something men talk about.

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, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best.

What about you, Michel, what are you going to do here?The response closest to the truth was probably something like Nothing; but its always difficult to explain that kind of thing to an active person.

You cant be a crazy rebel in the face of death, its not a fitting attitude.

The love of a dog is a pure thing. He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it.

I tend to think that good and evil exist and that the quantity in each of us is unchangeable. The moral character of people is set, fixed until death.

The most stupid religion is Islam.

Women are not stupid, but they were not clever enough to realise that feminism did not bring freedom, but the opposite. Thats why Im glad feminism is dead.

“The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.”

“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, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best. Such a life has not been granted me...”

“People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things – even tragedy – with a sense of irony. There’s some truth in it; it’s pretty stupid of them, though. Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there’s only death.”