Michel Houellebecq Quotes

Quotes about:

• The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Brain, Shapes, Advantage

  "The passion killer" by Jonathan Romney, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2000.

  50 Copy quote

• Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ‘the law of the market’… In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Men, Law, People

  Michel Houellebecq (2011). “Whatever: A Novel”, p.99, Profile Books

  10 Copy quote

• To the end, I will remain a child of Europe, of worry and of shame. I have no message of hope to deliver. For the West, I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt. I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and what's more, we continue to export it.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Children, Europe, Worry

  Michel Houellebecq (2003). “Platform: A Novel”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Love Life, World, Littles

  "The myth maker" by Michel Houellebecq, www.theguardian.com. June 3, 2005.

  24 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Heart, Years, People

  24 Copy quote

• Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Anything Can Happen, Happens

  Michel Houellebecq (2003). “Platform: A Novel”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  25 Copy quote

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

  Michel Houellebecq

  World, Humans

  Michel Houellebecq (2001). “The Elementary Particles”, p.285, Vintage

  20 Copy quote

• The Americans are completely stupid. The intellectual level in any single European country is higher than in America.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Country, Stupid, America

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Girl, Dream, Teenage

  Michel Houellebecq (2006). “The Possibility of an Island”, p.144, Vintage

  17 Copy quote

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

  Michel Houellebecq

  Dog, Giving, Betray

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Beautiful, Girl, Cynical

  Michel Houellebecq (2001). “The Elementary Particles”, p.61, Vintage

  30 Copy quote

• The most stupid religion is Islam.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Stupid, Islam

  "I Read the News That Day, Oh Boy" by Hendrik Hertzberg, www.newyorker.com. September 2, 2011.

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Memories, Mistake, Leaving

  Michel Houellebecq (2011). “Whatever: A Novel”, p.46, Profile Books

  12 Copy quote

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

  Michel Houellebecq

  Boredom, Want, Absence

  19 Copy quote

• A source of permanent, accessible pleasure, our genitals exist. The god who created our misfortune, who made us short-lived, vain and cruel, has also provided this form of meagre compensation. If we couldn't have sex from time to time, what would life be? A futile struggle against joints that stiffen, caries that form. All of which, moreover, is as uninteresting as humanly possible - the collagen which makes muscles stiffen, the appearance of microbic cavities in the gums.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Sex, Struggle, Gum

  16 Copy quote

• Without beauty a girl is unhappy because she has missed her chance to be loved. People do not jeer at her, they are not cruel to her, but it is as if she were invisible, no eyes follow her as she walks. People feel uncomfortable when they are with her. They find it easier to ignore her. A girl who is exceptionally beautiful, on the other hand, who has something which too far surpasses the customary seductive freshness of adolescence, appears somehow unreal. Great beauty seems invariably to portend some tragic fate.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Beautiful, Girl, Eye

  Michel Houellebecq (2001). “The Elementary Particles”, p.61, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Why am I popular? I don't know. Is it a mistake? I should think it's a mistake somewhere.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Mistake, Thinking, Should

  13 Copy quote

• In order to pass the time I told him the story of the German who ate the other German whom he’d met on the internet.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Order, Stories, Internet

  16 Copy quote

• Depressive lucidity, usually described as a radical withdrawal from ordinary human concerns, generally manifests itself by a profound indifference to things which are genuinely of minor interest. Thus it is possible to imagine a depressed lover, while the idea of a depressed patriot seems frankly inconceivable.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Ideas, Profound, Ordinary

  14 Copy quote

• Of course, we can distinguish between males and females; we can also, if we choose, distinguish between different age categories; but any more advanced distinction comes close to pedantry, probably a result of boredom. A creature that is bored elaborates distinctions and hierarchies. According to Hutchinson and Rawlins, the development of systems of hierarchical dominance within animal societies does not correspond to any practical necessity, nor to any selective advantage; it simply constitutes a means of combating the crushing boredom of life in the heart of nature.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Crush, Heart, Mean

  9 Copy quote

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

  Michel Houellebecq

  Ideas, Curious

  Michel Houellebecq (2001). “The Elementary Particles”, p.281, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

• I hadn’t seen any novel make the statement that entering the workforce was like entering the grave. That from then on, nothing happens and you have to pretend to be interested in your work. And, furthermore, that some people have a sex life and others don’t just because some are more attractive than others. I wanted to acknowledge that if people don’t have a sex life, it’s not for some moral reason, it’s just because they’re ugly. Once you’ve said it,
  it sounds obvious, but I wanted to say it.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Sex, People, Entering

  13 Copy quote

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

  Michel Houellebecq

  Giving Up, Seduction, Instinct

  13 Copy quote

• I'd say that the question whether love still exists plays the same role in my novels as the question of God's existence in Dostoevsky.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Play, Roles, Existence

  12 Copy quote

• Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Ideas, People, Jean Jacques Rousseau

  4 Copy quote

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