Quotes from The Elementary Particles

“It's a curious idea to reproduce when you don't even like life.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so hard to give up hope.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Irony 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 Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“The terrible predicament of a beautiful girl is that only an experienced womanizer, someone cynical and without scruple, feels up to the challenge. More often than not, she will lose her virginity to some filthy lowlife in what proves to be the first step in an irrevocable decline.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“It is interesting to note that the "sexual revolution" was sometimes portrayed as a communal utopia, whereas in fact it was simply another stage in the historical rise of individualism. As the lovely word "household" suggests, the couple and the family would be the last bastion of primitive communism in liberal society. The sexual revolution was to destroy these intermediary communities, the last to separate the individual from the market. The destruction continues to this day.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“He doesn't know it yet, but the infinity of childhood is brief.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit. All that exists is a magnificent interweaving, vast and reciprocal.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Thirty years later he could not come to any other conclusion: women were indisputably better than men. They were gentler, more affectionate, more loving and more compassionate, they were rarely violent, selfish, cruel or self-centred. Moreover, they were more rational, more intelligent and more hardworking.
What on earth were men for? Michael wondered as he watched sunlight play across the closed curtains. In earlier times, when bears were more common, perhaps masculinity served a particular function, but for centuries now, men served no useful purpose. For the most part, they assuaged their boredom playing squash, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need to change history - which expressed itself in leading a revolution or starting a war somewhere. Aside from the senseless suffering they caused, revolutions and war destroyed the achievements of the past, forcing societies to build again. Without the notion of continuous progress, human evolution took random, irregular and violent turns for which men (with their predilection for risk and danger, their repulsive egotism, their volatile nature and their violent tendencies) were directly to blame. A society of women would be immeasurably superior, tracing a slow, unwavering progression, with no U-turns and no chaotic insecurity, towards a general happiness.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“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, quote from The Elementary Particles

“When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Rumor had it that he was homosexual; in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really 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 humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end there’s only death.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Back in Paris they had happy moments together, like stills from a perfume ad (dashing hand in hand down the steps of Montmartre; or suddenly revealed in motionless embrace on the Pont des Arts by the lights of a bateau-mouche as it turned). There were the Sunday afternoon half-arguments, too, the moments of silence when bodies curl up beneath the sheets on the long shores of silence and apathy where life founders. Annabelle's studio was so dark they had to turn on the lights at four in the afternoon. They sometimes were sad, but mostly they were serious. Both of them knew that this would be their last human relationship, and this feeling lacerated every moment they spent together. They had a great respect and a profound sympathy for each other, and there were days when, caught up in some sudden magic, they knew moments of fresh air and glorious, bracing sunshine. For the most part, however, they could feel a gray shadow moving over them, on the earth that supported them, and in everything they could glimpse the end.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Unhappiness isn't at its most acute point until a realistic chance of happiness, sufficiently close, has been envisioned.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Talking to morons like that is like pissing in a urinal full of cigarette butts, like shitting in a toilet full of Tampax: nothing gets flushed, and everything starts to stink.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“საინტერესოა, როდესაც სხვები შენზე ლაპარაკობენ, მით უმეტეს, თუ ისინი შენს იქ ყოფნას ვერც ამჩნევენ. ის კი არა და, შეიძლება საკუთარ არსებობაში დაეჭვდე. ამას კი თავისი ხიბლი აქვს.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“What the boy felt was something pure, something gentle, something that predates sex or sensual fulfillment. It was the simple desire to reach out and touch a loving body, to be held in loving arms. Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so difficult to give up hope.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Contemporary consciousness is no longer equipped to deal with our mortality. Never in any other time, or any other civilization, have people thought so much or so contantly about aging. Each individual has a simple view of the future: a time will come when the sum of pleasures that life has left to offer is outweighed by the sum of pain (one can actually feel the meter ticking, and it ticks always in the same direction). This weighing up of pleasure and pain, which everyone is forced to make sooner or later, leads logically, at a certain age, to suicide.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“The only conclusion he could draw was that without points of reference, a man melts away.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Gewiss hat sich die westliche Welt über alle Maßen für Philosophie und Politik interessiert und sich in geradezu unsinniger Weise um philosophische und politische Fragen gestritten; gewiss hat die westliche Welt auch eine wahre Leidenschaft für Literatur und Kunst entwickelt; aber nichts in ihrer ganzen Geschichte hat eine solche Bedeutung gehabt wie das Bedürfnis nach rationaler Gewissheit. Diesem Bedürfnis nach rationaler Gewissheit hat die westliche Welt schließlich alles geopfert: ihre Religion, ihr Glück, ihre Hoffnungen und letztlich ihr Leben.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“There is no endless silence of infinite space, for in reality there is no space, no silence and no void.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“«Sophie, s'exclama à nouveau Bruno, sais-tu ce que Nietzsche a écrit de Shakespeare? "Ce que cet homme a dû souffrir pour éprouver un tel besoin de faire le pitre!..." Shakespeare m'a toujours paru un auteur surfait; mais c'est, en effet, un pitre considérable.» II s'interrompit, prit conscience avec surprise qu'il commençait réellement à souffrir. Les femmes, parfois, étaient tellement gentilles; elles répondaient à l'agressivité par la compréhension, au cynisme par la douceur. Quel homme se serait comporté ainsi?”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Thirty years later, Bruno was convinced that, taken in context, the episode could be summed up in one sentence: Caroline Yessayan's miniskirt was to blame for everything.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“L'humour ne sauve pas; l'humour ne sert en définitive à peu près à rien. On peut envisager les évènements de la vie avec humour pendant des années, parfois de très longues années, dans certains cas on peut adopter une attitude humoristique jusqu'à la fin; mais en définitive la vie vous brise le coeur. Quelles que soient les qualités de courage, de sang froid et d'humour qu'on a pu développer tout au long de sa vie, on finit toujours par avoir le coeur brisé. Alors on s'arrête de rire. Au bout du compte il n'y a plus que la solitude, le froid et le silence. Au bout du compte il n'y a plus que la mort.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“Later Michel went up to the priest as he was packing away the tools of the trade. “I was very interested in what you were saying earlier…” The man of God smiled urbanely, then Michel began to talk about the Aspect experiments and the EPR paradox: how two particle, once united, are forever and inseparable whole, “which seems pretty much in keeping with what you were saying about one flesh.” The priest’s smile froze slightly. “What I’m trying to say, “Michel went on enthusiastically, “is that from an ontological point of view, the pair can be assigned a single vector in Hilbert space. Do you see what I mean?”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

“À l'âge de quinze ans Annabelle faisait partie de ces très rares jeunes filles sur lesquelles tous les hommes s'arrêtent, sans distinction d'âge ni d'état; de ces jeunes filles dont le simple passage, le long de la rue commerçante d'une ville d'importance moyenne, accélère le rythme cardiaque des jeunes gens et des hommes d'âge mûr, fait pousser des grognements de regret aux vieillards. Elle prit rapidement conscience de ce silence qui accompagnait chacune de ses apparitions, dans un café ou dans une salle de cours, mais il lui fallut des années pour en comprendre pleinement la raison. Au CEG de Crécy-en-Brie, il était communément admis qu'elle «était avec» Michel; mais même sans cela, à vrai dire, aucun garçon n'aurait osé tenter quoi que ce soit avec elle. Tel est l'un des principaux inconvénients de l'extrême beauté chez les jeunes filles: seuls les dragueurs expérimentés, cyniques et sans scrupule se sentent à la hauteur; ce sont donc en général les êtres les plus vils qui obtiennent le trésor de leur virginité, et ceci constitue pour elles le premier stade d'une irrémédiable déchéance.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Elementary Particles

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Popular quotes

“Self expression is a vital part of understanding life, and enjoying it to the full.”
― Oliver Bowden, quote from Assassin's Creed: Renaissance

“I love the French edition with its uncut pages. I would not want a reader too lazy to use a knife on me.”
― Lawrence Durrell, quote from Balthazar

“The rest of the family looked on with a bemusement that, in the case of Rafa’s mother, occasionally gave way to anger. His father, Sebastián, had his misgivings. His uncle Rafael wondered sometimes whether Toni was pushing his nephew too hard. His godfather, his mother’s brother, Juan, went so far as to say that what Toni was doing to the child amounted to “mental cruelty.”
― quote from Rafa

“How can you trust a God Who took away your parents?” Her gaze fell. “This life isn’t perfect, and there are things that happen, bad things, set into motion by people who make really bad choices. God does not alter the physical laws of this world. If velocity says a car traveling at this speed hits another at that speed, there are consequences to that impact. God allows the laws here to work so that we can live our lives. Otherwise, if the law of gravity worked sometimes and not others, we couldn’t even walk out of our house because we might float off the planet.” She paused and then shook her head. “But there’s more to it than that. God can take anything, anything and use it to teach us, to strengthen us, to guide us—if we let Him.”
― Staci Stallings, quote from Deep in the Heart

“El júbilo de ver de nuevo su rostro,
de volver a abrazarla, de escuchar su
risa, de verla comer, de mirar sus manos
otra vez, la dicha de contemplar su
cuerpo desnudo, de besar su cuerpo
desnudo, de ver cómo frunce el ceño,
cómo se cepilla el pelo, se pinta las
uñas, la alegría de estar otra vez con
ella en la ducha, de hablar de libros con
ella otra vez, de ver cómo se le llenan
los ojos de lágrimas, de ver cómo
camina, de oír cómo insulta a Ángela, el
regocijo de leerle en voz alta, de oírla
eructar, de ver cómo se cepilla los
dientes, el gozo de desnudarla de nuevo,
de juntar otra vez la boca con la suya, de
mirarle la nuca, el placer de andar por
la calle con ella, de ponerle el brazo
sobre los hombros, de lamerle los
pechos de nuevo, de penetrar en su
cuerpo, de volver a despertarse a su
lado, de hablar de matemáticas con ella,
de comprarle ropa, de darle y recibir
masajes en la espalda, de volver a
hablar de su porvenir, la alegría de vivir
otra vez con ella en el presente, de oírla
decir que lo quiere, de decirle que la
quiere, de volver a sentir la mirada de
sus intensos ojos negros, y luego la
tortura de verla abordar el autobús en la
terminal de Port Authority en la tarde
del 3 de enero con la plena conciencia
de que hasta abril, dentro de más de tres
meses, no tendrá ocasión de volver a
estar con ella.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Sunset Park

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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