Quotes from Michel Houellebecq

Já na manhã seguinte (...) entendi que uma parte de minha vida acabava de terminar, e era provavelmente a melhor.

Si hay alguien que me ame, en la Tierra o las estrellas, Debería darme alguna señal ahora Siento cómo se acumulan los indicios de un desastre, En mi brazo, la cuchilla traza una línea recta.

Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.

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

Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.

It's a curious idea to reproduce when you don't even like life.

Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so hard to give up hope.

Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.

If life is an illusion it's a pretty painful one.

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...

The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human.

Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.

I don't like this world. I definitely do not like it. The society in which I live disgusts me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke.

Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don't care to know any more.

Irony won't save you from anything; humour doesn't 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, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing.

The past is always beautiful. So, for that matter, is the future. Only the present hurts, and we carry it around like an abscess of suffering, our compassion between two infinities of happiness and peace.

It's hard to understand other people, to know what's hidden in their hearts, and without the assistance of alcohol it might never be done at all.

I've lived so little that I tend to imagine I'm not going to die; it seems improbable that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself, that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor memory; and then all of a sudden they stop.

The terrible predicament of a beautiful girl is that only an experienced womanizer, someone cynical and without scruple, feels up to the challenge. More often than not, she will lose her virginity to some filthy lowlife in what proves to be the first step in an irrevocable decline.

Et l'amour, où tout est facile, Où tout est donné dans l'instant; Il existe au milieu du temps La possibilité d'une île.

To increase desires to an unbearable level whilst making the fulfillment of them more and more inaccessible: this was the single principle upon which Western society was based.

Only literature can grant you access to a spirit from beyond the grave—a more direct, more complete, deeper access than you'd have in conversation with a friend.

It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.

beds last on an average much longer than marriages...