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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.

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
Songwriter
Writer
Care
Generally
Writing
Painful
Life
Relation
Therefore
Novel
Disappointing
Stand
Realistic
Write
Novels
Reality
Useless

More quotes by Michel Houellebecq

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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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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.
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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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I am for the muscles. I would like to have a lot of muscles, because women like it. I'm for bodybuilding, but it's very exhausting.
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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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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I think that if writers don't speak about real life, it's because they don't know it.
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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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Using a big word like 'plagiarism'... always causes some damage. It will always do lasting damage, like accusations of racism.
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
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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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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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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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The Americans are completely stupid. The intellectual level in any single European country is higher than in America.
Michel Houellebecq
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The press may hate me, and I know my battles with them are not over, but that doesn't matter.
Michel Houellebecq
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Islam is a dangerous religion.
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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On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighbourhood I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn't believe in God.
Michel Houellebecq
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In reality, the monotheist texts preach neither peace, love nor tolerance. They are texts of hate.
Michel Houellebecq