The Elementary Particles

by Michel Houellebecq

But as he watched, the unshakable conviction grew that nature, taken as a whole, was a repulsive cesspit.

“Excellent, also excellent—you’re a real reactionary, that’s good. All the great writers were reactionaries: Balzac, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky. But you have to fuck, too, you know? You have to fuck as much as possible—that’s important.”