Michel Houellebecq

The map is more interesting than the territory.

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__ some truth in it; it__ pretty stupid of them, though. Humor won__ save you; it doesn__ 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__ matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you__e developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That__ when you stop laughing. In the end there__ just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there__ only death.

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.

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__ care to know any more.

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...

Women are not stupid, but they were not clever enough to realise that feminism did not bring freedom, but the opposite. That's why I'm glad feminism is dead.

The most stupid religion is Islam.

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.

Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.

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

You can't be a crazy rebel in the face of death, it's not a fitting attitude.

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

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 person.

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.

...intimacy isn't 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__ something men talk about.

The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity__hich is what, more or less, all teenage girls are.

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