Michel Houellebecq

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

"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."

"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."

"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 domination between men and women is relatively secondary—important but still secondary—compared to what I tried to capture in this novel, which is that we are now trapped in a world of kids. Old kids. The disappearance of patrimonial transmission means that an old guy today is just a useless ruin. The thing we value most of all is youth, which means that life automatically becomes depressing, because life consists, on the whole, of getting old."

"For myself, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to own a Rolex, a pair of Nikes or a BMW Z3; in fact, I had never succeeded in identifying the slightest difference between designer goods and non-designer goods. In the eyes of the world, I was clearly wrong. I was aware of this: I was in a minority, and consequently in the wrong. There had to be a difference between Yves Saint-Laurent shirts and other shirts, between Gucci moccasins and Andre moccasins. I was alone in not perceiving this difference; it was an infirmity which I could not cite as grounds for condemning the world. Does one ask a blind man to set himself up as an expert on post-impressionist painting? Through my blindness, however involuntary, I set myself apart from a living human reality powerful enough to incite both devotion and crime. These youths, through their half-savage instincts, undoubtedly discerned the presence of beauty; their desire was laudable, and perfectly in keeping with social norms; it was merely a question of rectifying the inappropriate way in which it was expressed."

"Much, maybe too much, has been written about literature. (I know better than anyone; I’m an expert in the field). Yet the special thing about literature, the major art form of a Western civilization now ending before our very eyes, is not hard to define. Like literature, music can overwhelm you with sudden emotion, can move you to absolute sorrow or ecstasy; like literature, painting has the power to astonish, and to make you see the world through fresh eyes. But only literature can put you in touch with another human spirit, as a whole, with all its weaknesses and grandeurs, it limitations, its pettinesses, its obsessions, its beliefs; with whatever it finds moving, interesting, exciting, or repugnant. 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. Even in our deepest, most lasting friendships, we never speak so openly as when we face a blank page and address an unknown reader."

"In societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five of 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."

"If you control the children, you control the future."

"The map is more interesting than the territory."

"Maybe I should have gone into politics. If you were a political activist, election season brought moments of intensity, whichever side you were on, and meanwhile here I was inarguably withering away,"

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