The most stupid religion is Islam.

— Michel Houellebecq

The past is always beautiful. So, for that matter, is the future. Only the present hurts, and we carry it around like an abscess of suffering, our compassion between two infinities of happiness and peace.

— Michel Houellebecq

The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes. Whether the life is tragic or enlightened, the classic gravestone inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death has, in its brevity, much to recommend it.

— Michel Houellebecq

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

— Michel Houellebecq

They were really willing to pay to avoid any trouble. No doubt they had overestimated the ability of academics to make a nuisance of themselves. It had been years since an academic title gained you access to major media.... Even if all the university professors in France had risen up in protest, almost nobody would have noticed, but apparently they hadn't found that out in Saudi Arabia. They still believed, deep down, in the power of the intellectual elite. It was almost touching.

— Michel Houellebecq

To love a book is, above all, to love its author: we want to meet him again, we want to spend our days with him.

— Michel Houellebecq

Two years before, when the riots started, the media had had a field day, but now people discussed them less and less. ... ...in fact the media's attitude had changed over the last few months. No one talked about violence in the balloons or race riots anymore. That was all passed over in silence.

— Michel Houellebecq

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.

— Michel Houellebecq

When you got right down to it, my dick was the one organ that hadn’t presented itself to my consciousness through pain, only pleasure. Modest but robust, it had always served me faithfully. Or, you could argue, I had served it – if so, its yoke had been easy. It never gave me orders. It sometimes encouraged me to get out more, but it encouraged me humbly, without bitterness or anger. This past evening, I knew, it had interceded on Myriam’s behalf. It had always enjoyed good relations with Myriam, Myriam had always treated it with affection and respect, and this had given me an enormous amount of pleasure. And sources of pleasure were hard to come by. In the end, my dick was all I had.

— Michel Houellebecq

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

— Michel Houellebecq