Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecqis a French author, filmmaker, and poet. Having written poetry and a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, he published his first novel, Whatever, in 1994. Atomised followed in 1998, and Platform in 2001. He published a book of poems, The Art of Struggle, in 1996. After a publicity tour for Platform led to his being taken to court for inciting racial hatred, he moved to Ireland to write for several years. He currently resides in...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth26 February 1956
CountryFrance
In my own writing, I think of myself as a realist who exaggerates a little.
Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult.
In reality, the monotheist texts preach neither peace, love nor tolerance. They are texts of hate.
Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.
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.
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.
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.
The love of a dog is a pure thing. He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it.
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.
Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.
Why am I popular? I don't know. Is it a mistake? I should think it's a mistake somewhere.
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.
I hadn’t seen any novel make the statement that entering the workforce was like entering the grave. That from then on, nothing happens and you have to pretend to be interested in your work. And, furthermore, that some people have a sex life and others don’t just because some are more attractive than others. I wanted to acknowledge that if people don’t have a sex life, it’s not for some moral reason, it’s just because they’re ugly. Once you’ve said it, it sounds obvious, but I wanted to say it.