A source of permanent, accessible pleasure, our genitals exist. The god who created our misfortune, who made us short-lived, vain and cruel, has also provided this form of meagre compensation. If we couldn't have sex from time to time, what would life be? A futile struggle against joints that stiffen, caries that form. All of which, moreover, is as uninteresting as humanly possible - the collagen which makes muscles stiffen, the appearance of microbic cavities in the gums.
Michel HouellebecqJust like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. Itโs whatโs known as โthe law of the marketโโฆ In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.
Michel HouellebecqIrony won't save you from anything; humour doesn't do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing.
Michel HouellebecqWhy am I popular? I don't know. Is it a mistake? I should think it's a mistake somewhere.
Michel HouellebecqTo 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 HouellebecqTenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so hard to give up hope.
Michel Houellebecqitโs true this world our breathing laboured inspires nothing more than obvious disgust a desire to flee without our share and no longer read the headlines we long to return to our ancestral home where our forebears once lived under an angelโs wing we long to find that strange morality which sanctified life to the end we crave something like loyalty like the embrace of mild addictions something that transcends yet contains life we cannot live far from eternity
Michel Houellebecq