{"author":"Michel Houellebecq","author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq","total_quotes":49,"quotes":[{"text":"Much, maybe too much, has been written about literature.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["literature"],"id":33362,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["boredom","death","inspirational","life","misery"],"id":47764,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"Maybe I should have gone into politics. If you were a political activist, election season brought moments of intensity, whichever side you were on, and meanwhile here I was inarguably withering away,.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["nihilism","philosophy","politics","submission"],"id":48026,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"Rumor had it that he was homosexual; in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["drinking"],"id":48501,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"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\u0026M, but it was forbidden to be old.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["aging","humor"],"id":52055,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"What about you, Michel, what are you going to do here?'The response closest to the truth was probably something like 'Nothing'; but it's always difficult to explain that kind of thing to an active person.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["nothing"],"id":60984,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"I maintained a tactical silence. When you maintain a tactical silence and look people right in the eye, as if drinking in their words, they talk. People like to be listened to, as every researcher knows--every researcher, every writer, every spy.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["researcher","silence","spy","tactical"],"id":70969,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"Olga was nice, Olga was nice and loving, Olga loved him, he repeated to himself with a growing sadness as he also realised that nothing would ever happen between them again, life sometimes offers you a chance he thought, but when you are too cowardly or too indecisive to seize it life takes the cards away; there is a moment for doing things and entering a possible happiness, and this moment lasts a few days, a few weeks or even a few months, but it only happens once and one time only, and if you want to return to it later it's quite simply impossible. There's no more place for enthusiasm, belief and faith, and there remains just gentle resignation, a sad and reciprocal pity, the useless but correct sensation that something could have happened, that you just simply showed yourself unworthy of this gift you had been offered.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["loss","love","missed-connections","sadness"],"id":74542,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"The most stupid religion is Islam.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["stupid","islam","most "],"id":79177,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"},{"text":"Intimacy isn’t something men talk about.","author":"Michel Houellebecq","tags":["intimacy"],"id":94891,"author_id":"Michel+Houellebecq"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":49,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}