Serotonin Quotes

“God takes care of us; he thinks of us every minute, and he gives us instructions that are sometimes very precise. Those surges of love that flow into our chests and take our breath away -- those illuminations, those ecstasies, inexplicable if we consider our biological nature, our status as simple primates-- are extremely clear signs.

And today I understand Christ's point of view and his repeated horror at the hardening of people's hearts: all of these things are signs, and they don't realise it. Must I really, on top of everything else, give my life for these wretches? Do I really have to be explicit on that point?

Apparently so.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“You really can't do anything about people's lives, I said to myself, neither friendship nor compassion nor the intelligence of the situations is of any use: people manufacture the mechanism of their own misfortune, they wind it right up and the mechanism goes on turning”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“...from the bureaucratic point of view, a good citizen is a dead citizen.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“The whole point of bureaucracy is to reduce the possibilities of your life to the greatest possible degree when it doesn’t simply succeed in destroying them; from the bureaucratic point of view, a good citizen is a dead citizen.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“... it isn't the future but past that kills you, that comes back to torment and undermine you, and effectively ends up killing you.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin: A Novel

“our student years are the only happy ones, when the future seems open, when everything seems possible, and after that adulthood and career are only a slow and progressive process of ending up in a rut. That's probably also why the friendships of our youth, the ones we make during our time as students and which are our only true friendships, never survive into adulthood: we avoid seeing them so as not to be confronted by witnesses to our crushed hopes, the evidence of our defeat.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“I can't hide the truth: I will end my life unhappy, cantankerous and alone, and I will have deserved it.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“Men in general don’t know how to live: they have no true familiarity with life, and never feel entirely at ease in it, so they pursue different projects, more or less ambitious and more or less grandiose – generally speaking, of course, they fail and reach the conclusion that they would have been better off just living, but as a rule by that point it’s too late.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“...I can only compare it to those rare moments that come when one is extremely calm and happy, or about to topple into sleep, but holding back at the last minute, while at the same time being aware that the sleep about to come will be deep, delicious and restorative. I don’t think I’m making a mistake comparing sleep to love; I don’t think I’m mistaken comparing love to a kind of dream à deux, admittedly with some little moments of individual dreaming, little games of connection and encounter, but which enable us to transform our earthly existence into an endurable moment – the only way to do so, to tell the truth.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“No one in the West will ever be happy again, she also thought, never again; happiness today is nothing but an old dream, the past conditions for its existence are simply no longer being fulfilled.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin: A Novel

“The outside world was harsh, merciless towards the weak, and hardly ever kept its promises, and love remained the only thing in which one could still, perhaps, have faith.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“and there can’t be an area of human activity as utterly boring as the law.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin: A Novel

“It’s mostly that Kate, standing on the platform,started crying, not really crying, some tears ran down her face; she was looking at me, she looked at me for over a minute until the train departed, her eyes didn’t leave mine for a second and at a particular moment, in spite of herself, tears started flowing, and I didn’t move, didn’t jump on to the platform, I waited for the doors to close again.

For that I deserve death, and even more serious punishments; I can’t hide the truth: I will end my life unhappy, cantankerous and alone, and I will have deserved it. How could a man who had known Kate turn away from her? It’s incomprehensible.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“You can't let pain go beyond a certain level or you start doing crazy things : you swallow some Destop Turbo and your internal organs, composed of the same substances that usually block sinks, break down amidst horrible pain: or else you throw yourself under a metro and find yourself two legs short with your balls crushed to bits, but still alive.”
― Michel Houellebeacq, Serotonin

“El mundo exterior era duro, implacable con los débiles, no cumplía nunca sus promesas, y el amor seguía siendo lo único en lo que todavía se podía, quizá, tener fe.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonina

“An atmosphere of general catastrophe always alleviates individual catastrophe- that's probably why suicides are so rare in wartime”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“Les hommes en géneral ne savent pas vivre, ils n'ont aucune vraie familiarité avec la vie, ils ne s'y sentent jamais tout à fait à leur aise, aussi poursuivent-ils différents projets, plus ou moins ambitieux plus ou moins grandioses c'est selon, en géneral bien entendu ils échouent et parviennent à la conclusion qu'ils aurait mieux fait, tout simplement, de vivre, mais en général il est trop tard.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“it is terrible and strange to think about all the men and all the women who have nothing to tell, and who imagine no future fate other than to dissolve into a vague biological and technical continuum (because ashes are technical; even when they are only destined to become fertiliser you have to assess their potassium and nitrogen levels); all those people, in short, whose lives have played out without external incident, and who leave life without thinking about it, as one leaves a holiday home that was just fine, without, however, having an idea of a final destination, with just that vague intuition that it would have been preferable not to have been born – well, now I’m talking about the majority of men and women.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“деньгами никогда не вознаграждали труд по достоинству, одно к другому не имеет никакого отношения, человеческое сообщество ещё никогда не строилось на адекватной оплате труда, и даже коммунистическое общество будущего не собиралось зиждиться на этой основе, принцип распределения благ был сведён Марксом к совершенно бессмысленной формуле "каждому по потребностям", которая стала бы неисчерпаемым источником всяческих дрязг и склок, не приведи господь, её кто-нибудь попытался бы применить на практике, но, к счастью, этого так и не случилось, в коммунистических странах, как и во всех остальных, деньги идут к деньгам, у кого деньги, у того и власть, таково последнее слово общественного устройства”
― Мишель Уэльбек, Serotonin

“...And without having personally known that experience I have a sense that even when you plunge into true night, polar night – the one that lasts for six months in a row – the concept or the memory of the sun remains. I had entered an endless night, and yet there remained, deep within me, there remained something less than a hope, let’s say an uncertainty. One might also say that even when one has personally lost the game, when one has played one’s last card, for some people – not all, not all – the idea remains that something in heaven will pick up the hand, will arbitrarily decide to deal again, to throw the dice again, even when one has never at any moment in one’s life sensed the intervention or even the presence of any kind of deity, even when one is aware of not especially deserving the intervention of a favourable deity, and even when one realises, bearing in mind the accumulation of mistakes and errors that constitute one’s life, that one deserves it less than anyone.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“....people manufacture the mechanism of their own misfortune, they wind it right up and the mechanism goes on turning, ineluctably, with the odd mistake, a few errors when there’s sickness in the mix, but it goes on turning to the end, to the final second.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“а ведь мать либо полностью отдает себя детям и борется за их счастье, поставив крест на своём собственном, либо происходит ровно обратное, середины нет, дети становятся досадной помехой, и сиюминутное раздражение быстро перерастает во враждебность”
― Мишель Уэльбек, Serotonin

“O atmosferă de catastrofă globală face înrtotdeauna mai suportabile catastrofele individuale, acesta e motivul pentru care, negreșit, sunt atât de rare sinuciderile în vreme de război.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“Nu speram nimic, eram perfect conștient că nu aveam ce să sper, analiza situației mi se părea completă și neîndoielnică. Există anumite zone ale psihicului uman care rămân puțin cunoscute, pentru că au fost precar cercetate, pentru că, din fericire, puțini oameni s-au aflat în situația de a fi obligați s-o facă, iar cei care au făcut-o nu au rămas în general cu mintea atât de întreagă încât să poată oferi o descriere satisfăcătoare. Aceste zone nu pot fi abordate decât folosind formule paradoxale sau chiar absurde, în rândul cărora expresia să speri dincolo de orice speranță e singura care-mi vine în minte. Nu seamănă cu noaptea, e mai rău; și fără să fi încercat personal această experiență, am impresia că până și atunci când te cufunzi în adevărata noapte, în noaptea polară, cea care durează șase luni, tot mai persistă conceptul de soare sau amintirea soarelui. Intrasem într-o noapte fără sfârșit, și rămăsese, cu toate astea, rămăsese în străfundul sufletului meu ceva, ceva mult mai mărunt decât o speranță, hai să-i zicem o incertitudine. S-ar putea de asemenea spune că până și atunci când ai pierdut personal partida, când ți-ai jucat ultima carte, unii - nu toți, dar unii - nutresc ideea că acolo, în ceruri, ceva va drege situația, va hotărî în mod arbitrar să mai împartă o dată cărțile, sau să arunce din nou zarurile, și asta chiar atunci când n-ai simțit niciodată, în nici o clipă a vieții, intervenția sau chiar prezența unei divinități oarecare, chiar atunci când ești conștient că nu meriți în mod deosebit amestecul unei divinități favorabile, și chiar atunci când îți dai seama, din pricina aglomerării de greșeli și de scăpări care constituie viața ta, că o meriți mai puțin decât oricine altcineva.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“În general, oamenii nu știu să trăiască, nu se pun de acord cu viața, nu se simt bine cu adevărat în această viață, așa încât ticluiesc diferite proiecte, mai mult sau mai puțin ambițioase, mai mult sau mai puțin mărețe, după caz, și, de obicei, dau greș, ajungând la concluzia că ar fi fost mai bine, pur și simplu, să trăiască, dar, tot de obicei, e prea târziu pentru așa ceva.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“ludzie nie sprzymierzyli się przeciw mnie, stało się jedynie to, że nic się nie stało, tylko moja od początku ograniczona przynależność do świata stopniowo stała się zerowa, aż w końcu nic już nie mogło powstrzymać mojego dalszego staczania się po równi pochyłej”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“Like all countries in Western Europe, Spain, engaged in a deadly process of increasing productivity, had gradually rid itself of all low-skilled jobs that had previously helped to keep life a little less unpleasant, and in doing so had condemned the majority of its population to mass unemployment.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“E' una piccola compressa bianca, ovale, divisibile.. Non crea né trasforma; interpreta. Ciò che era definitivo, lo rende passeggero; ciò che era ineluttabile, lo rende contingente. Fornisce una nuova interpretazione della vita - meno ricca, più artificiale, e improntata a una certa rigidità. Non dà alcuna forma di felicità, e neppure di vero sollievo, la sua azione è di tipo diverso: trasformando la vita in una serie di formalità, permette di raggirare. Pertanto aiuta gli uomini a vivere, o almeno a non morire - per qualche tempo.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

“dès qu’on parle de quitter la France tous les Français trouvent ça formidable c’est un point caractéristique chez eux, même si c’est pour aller au Groenland ils trouvent ça formidable”
― Michel Houellebecq, Sérotonine

“¿Era capaz de ser feliz en soledad? No lo creía. ¿Era capaz de ser feliz en general? Creo que es la clase de preguntas que más vale no hacerse.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Serotonina