Jmoons

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Jmoons.


How to Know a Per...
Rate this book
Clear rating

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

Michel Houellebecq
“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, The Elementary Particles

Michel Houellebecq
“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, The Elementary Particles

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

Michel Houellebecq
“I am persuaded that feminism is not at the root of political correctness. The actual source is much nastier and dares not speak its name, which is simply hatred for old people. The question of domination between men and women is relatively secondary—important but still secondary—compared to what I tried to capture in this novel, which is that we are now trapped in a world of kids. Old kids. The disappearance of patrimonial transmission means that an old guy today is just a useless ruin. The thing we value most of all is youth, which means that life automatically becomes depressing, because life consists, on the whole, of getting old.”
Michel Houellebecq
tags: aging

year in books
Sanne R...
906 books | 35 friends

Kim
Kim
845 books | 10 friends

Twan Go...
236 books | 7 friends

Maarten
134 books | 16 friends

Roel
150 books | 15 friends

Barbara...
30 books | 29 friends

Anne
162 books | 21 friends

Ian Fit...
84 books | 8 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by Jmoons

Lists liked by Jmoons