I want to be loved despite my faults. It isn't exactly true that I'm a provocateur. A real provocateur is someone who says things he doesn't think, just to shock. I try to say what I think.
Michel HouellebecqActive people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Michel HouellebecqI 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 HouellebecqThe press may hate me, and I know my battles with them are not over, but that doesn't matter.
Michel HouellebecqI think she is going to find you too old... Yes that was it, the moment she said it I knew it was true, and the revelation caused me no surprise, it was like the echo of a dull, not unexpected shock. The age difference was the last taboo, the final limit, all the stronger for the fact that it remained the last and had replaced all the others. In the modern world you could be a swinger, bi, trans, zoo into S&M, but it was forbidden to be old.
Michel Houellebecq