Quotes from The Possibility of an Island

“Youth was the time for happiness, its only season; young people, leading a lazy, carefree life, partially occupied by scarcely absorbing studies, were able to devote themselves unlimitedly to the liberated exultation of their bodies. They could play, dance, love, and multiply their pleasures. They could leave a party, in the early hours of the morning, in the company of sexual partners they had chosen, and contemplate the dreary line of employees going to work. They were the salt of the earth, and everything was given to them, everything was permitted for them, everything was possible. Later on, having started a family, having entered the adult world, they would be introduced to worry, work, responsibility, and the difficulties of existence; they would have to pay taxes, submit themselves to administrative formalities while ceaselessly bearing witness--powerless and shame-filled--to the irreversible degradation of their own bodies, which would be slow at first, then increasingly rapid; above all, they would have to look after children, mortal enemies, in their own homes, they would have to pamper them, feed them, worry about their illnesses, provide the means for their education and their pleasure, and unlike in the world of animals, this would last not just for a season, they would remain slaves of their offspring always, the time of joy was well and truly over for them, they would have to continue to suffer until the end, in pain and with increasing health problems, until they were no longer good for anything and were definitively thrown into the rubbish heap, cumbersome and useless. In return, their children would not be at all grateful, on the contrary their efforts, however strenuous, would never be considered enough, they would, until the bitter end, be considered guilty because of the simple fact of being parents. From this sad life, marked by shame, all joy would be pitilessly banished. When they wanted to draw near to young people's bodies, they would be chased away, rejected, ridiculed, insulted, and, more and more often nowadays, imprisoned. The physical bodies of young people, the only desirable possession the world has ever produced, were reserved for the exclusive use of the young, and the fate of the old was to work and to suffer. This was the true meaning of solidarity between generations; it was a pure and simple holocaust of each generation in favor of the one that replaced it, a cruel, prolonged holocaust that brought with it no consolation, no comfort, nor any material or emotional compensation.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Et l'amour, où tout est facile,
Où tout est donné dans l'instant;
Il existe au milieu du temps
La possibilité d'une île.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“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.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“La solitude à deux est l'enfer consenti.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity—which is what, more or less, all teenage girls are.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Refuser de faire quelque chose parce qu'on l'a déjà fait, parce qu'on a déjà vécu l'expérience, conduit rapidement à une destruction, pour soi-même comme pour les autres, de toute raison de vivre comme de tout futur possible, et vous plonge dans un ennui pesant qui finit par se transformer en une amertume atroce, accompagnée de haine et de rancoeur à l'égard de ceux qui appartiennent encore à la vie.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Youth, beauty, strenght: the criteria for physical lova are exactly the same as those of Nazism.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“I 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, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Living together aklone is hell between consenting adults.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Tout est kitsch, si l'on veut. La musique dans son ensemble est kitsch; l'art est kitsch; la littérature elle-même est kitsch. Toute émotion est kitsch, pratiquement par définition; mais toute réflexion aussi, et même dans un sens toute action. La seule chose qui ne soit absolument pas kitsch, c'est le néant.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Si la sincérité, en elle-même, n'est rien, elle est la condition de tout.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Lorsque la sexualité disparaît, c'est le corps de l'autre qui apparaît, dans sa présence vaguement hostile; ce sont les bruits, les mouvements, les odeurs; et la présence même de ce corps qu'on ne peut plus toucher, ni sanctifier par le contact, devient peu à peu une gêne; tout cela malheureusement, est connu. La disparition de la tendresse suit toujours de près celle de l'érotisme. Il n'y a pas de relation épurée, d'union supérieure des âmes, ni quoi que ce soit qui puisse y ressembler, ou même l'évoquer sur un mode allusif. Quand l'amour physique disparaît, tout disparaît; un agacement morne, sans profondeur, vient remplir la succession des jours.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Il n'y a pas d'amour dans la liberté individuelle, dans l'indépendance, c'est tout simplement un mensonge, et l'un des plus grossiers qui puisse se concevoir; il n'y a d'amour que dans le désir d'anéantissement, de fusion, de disparition individuelle, dans une sorte comme on disait autrefois de sentiment océanique, dans quelque chose qui de toute façon était, au moins dans un futur proche, condamné.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“La seule chance de survie, lorsqu'on est sincèrement épris, consiste à dissimuler à la femme qu'on aime, à feindre en toute circonstance un léger détachement.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Le plaisir sexuel n'était pas seulement supérieur, en raffinement et en violence, à tous les autres plaisirs que pouvait comporter la vie; il n'était pas seulement l'unique plaisir qui ne s'accompagne d'aucun dommage pour l'organisme, mais qui contribue au contraire à le maintenir à son plus haut niveau de vitalité et de force; il était l'unique plaisir, l'unique objectif en vérité de l'existence humaine, et tous les autres - qu'ils soient associés aux nourritures riches, au tabac, aux alcools ou à la drogue - n'étaient que des compensations dérisoires et désespérées, des mini-suicides qui n'avaient pas le courage de dire leur nom, des tentatives pour détruire plus rapidement un corps qui n'avait plus accès au plaisir unique.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“I was myself drawn along a path that was just as hypothetical, but it had become a matter of indifference to me whether or not I reached my destination: basically, what I wanted to do was to continue to travel with Fox across the prairies and mountains, to experience the awakenings, the baths in a freezing river, the minutes spent drying in the sun, the evenings spent around the fire in the starlight. I had attained innocence, in an absolute and nonconflictual state, I no longer had any plan, nor any objective, and my individuality dissolved into an indefinite series of days; I was happy.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Si l'homme rit, s'il est le seul, parmi le règne animal, à exhiber cette atroce déformation faciale, c'est également qu'il est le seul, dépassant l'égoïsme de la nature animale, à avoir atteint le stade infernal et suprême de la cruauté.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Que pouvions-nous faire, donc? Vivre? C'est exactement dans ce genre de situation qu'écrasés par le sentiment de leur propre insignifiance les gens se décident à faire des enfants; ainsi se reproduit l'espèce, de moins en moins il est vrai.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Nul ne peut voir par-dessus soi, écrit Schopenhauer pour faire comprendre l'impossibilité d'un échange d'idées entre deux individus d'un niveau intellectuel trop différent.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“No subject is more touched on than love, in the human life stories as well as in the literary corpus they have left us... No subject, either, is as discussed, as controversial, especially during the final period of human history, when the cyclothymic fluctuations concerning the belief in love became constant and dizzying. In conclusion, no subject seems to have preoccupied man as much; even money, even the satisfaction derived from combat and glory, loses by comparison, its dramatic power in human life stories. Love seems to have been, for humans of the final period, the acme and the impossible, the regret and the grace, the focal point upon which all suffering and joy could be concentrated.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Chacun d'entre nous a beau avoir une certaine capacité de résistance on finit tous par mourir d'amour, ou plutôt d'absence d'amour, c'est au bout du compte inéluctablement mortel.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Ce n'est pas la lassitude qui met fin à l'amour, ou plutôt cette lassitude naît de l'impatience des corps qui se savent condamnés et qui voudraient vivre, dans le laps de temps qui leur est imparti, ne laisser passer aucune chance, ne laisser échapper aucune possibilité, qui voudraient utiliser au maximum ce temps de vie limité, déclinant, médiocre qui est le leur, et qui partant ne peuvent aimer qui que ce soit car tous les autres leurs paraissent limités, déclinants, médiocres.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“In the presence of a reader of Teilhard De Chardin I feel disarmed, nonplussed, ready to break down in tears.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“But it remains the case that, on the level of consumption, the preeminence of the twentieth century was indisputable: nothing.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“La liberté, à titre personnel, j'étais plutôt contre; il est amusant de constater que ce sont toujours les adversaires de la liberté qui se trouvent, à un moment ou à un autre, en avoir le plus besoin.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Si le nourrisson humain, seul de tout le règne animal, manifeste immédiatement sa présence au monde par des hurlements de souffrance incessants, c'est bien entendu qu'il souffre de manière intolérable. {...) À tout observateur impartial en tout cas il apparaît que l'individu humain ne peut pas être heureux, qu'il n'est en aucune manière conçu pour le bonheur, et que sa seule destinée possible est de propager le malheur autour de lui en rendant l'existence des autres aussi intolérable que l'est la sienne propre - ses premières victimes étant généralement ses parents.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Life begins at fifty, that’s true, inasmuch as it ends at forty.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“What in fact could two men talk about, beyond a certain age? What reason could two men find for being together, except, of course, in the case of a conflict of interests, or some common project? After a certain age, it's quite obvious that everything has been said and done. How could a project as intrinsically empty as two men spending some time together lead to anything other than boredom, annoyance, and, at the end of the day, outright hostility? While between a man and a woman there still remained, despite everything, something: a little bit of attraction, a little bit of hope, a little bit of a dream.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“ორი ადამიანის მარტოობა სხვა არაფერია, თუ არა ნებაყოფლობითი ჯოჯოხეთი. ხშირად წყვილის ცხოვრებაში ოჯახის შექმნის დღიდან არსებობს პატარ-პატარა უთანხმოებები, რომლებზეც პარტნიორები ხმას არ იღებენ, ღრმად დარწმუნებულნი, რომ სიყვარული ერთიმეორის მიყოლებით ყველა ხინჯსა და პრობლემას უსიტყვოდ, უხმაუროდ გააქრობს. ეს პრობლემები სიჩუმესა და სიწყნარეში პირიქით – იზრდება და მძაფრდება, რამდენიმე წლის შემდეგ კი ფეთქდება და ერთ ჭერქვეშ ცხოვრებას შეუძლებელს ხდის.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

“Your only chance of survival, if you are severely smitten, lies in hiding this fact from the woman you love, of feigning a casual detachment under all circumstances. What sadness there is in this simple observation! What an accusation against man! Love makes you weak, and the weaker of the two is oppressed, tortured, and finally killed by the other, who in his or her turn oppresses, tortures, and kills without having evil intentions, without even getting pleasure from it, with complete indifference; that's what men, normally, call love.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from The Possibility of an Island

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