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I prefer reading to writing. Reading changes your world view. Writing changes absolutely nothing. Except, of course, when it makes you rich.

Michel Houellebecq

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Michel Houellebecq
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: February 26
Actor
Author
Essayist
Film Director
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
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Reading
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Absolutely
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More quotes by Michel Houellebecq

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Adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word.
Michel Houellebecq
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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
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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.
Michel Houellebecq
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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
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Why am I popular? I don't know. Is it a mistake? I should think it's a mistake somewhere.
Michel Houellebecq
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As a teenager, Michel believed that suffering conferred dignity on a person. Now he had to admit that he had been wrong. What conferred dignity on people was television.
Michel Houellebecq
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Polemical debates happen all the time in France.
Michel Houellebecq
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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
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Rumor had it that he was homosexual in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.
Michel Houellebecq
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The triumph of vegetation is total.
Michel Houellebecq
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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.
Michel Houellebecq
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In reality, the monotheist texts preach neither peace, love nor tolerance. They are texts of hate.
Michel Houellebecq
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I think that if writers don't speak about real life, it's because they don't know it.
Michel Houellebecq
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Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.
Michel Houellebecq
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Islam is a dangerous religion.
Michel Houellebecq
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When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent.
Michel Houellebecq
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People are suspicious of single men on vacation, after they get to a certain age: they assume that they're selfish, and probably a bit pervy. I can't say they're wrong.
Michel Houellebecq
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I feel as if things are falling apart within me, like so many glass partitions shattering. I walk from place to place in the grip of a fury, needing to act, yet can do nothing about it because any attempt seems doomed in advance. Failure, everywhere failure. Only suicide hovers above me, gleaming and inaccessible.
Michel Houellebecq
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In my own writing, I think of myself as a realist who exaggerates a little.
Michel Houellebecq
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I admit that invective is one of my pleasures. This only brings me problems in life, but that's it. I attack, I insult. I have a gift for that, for insults, for provocation. So I am tempted to use it.
Michel Houellebecq