The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human.

Dans le monde moderne on pouvait être échangiste, bi, trans, zoophile, SM, mais il était interdit d’être vieux. (La possibilité d’une île, Daniel 1,15)

He doesn’t know it yet, but the infinity of childhood is brief.

If life is an illusion it’s a pretty painful one.

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.

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....

Toute fin de vie quelconque s’apparente plus ou moins au rangement; on n’a plus envie de se lancer dans un projet neuf, on se contente d’expédier les affaires courantes. Toute chose que l’on n’a jamais...

Je sais bien que les faits semblent me contredire, je sais bien que l’islam – de loin la plus bête, la plus fausse et la plus obscurantiste de toutes les religions – semble actuellement gagner...

An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me....

Pour ce qu’il avait pu en observer l’existence des hommes s’organisait autour du travail, qui occupait la plus grande partie de la vie, et s’accomplissait dans des organisations de dimension variable. A l’issue des années...

It’s a curious idea to reproduce when you don’t even like life.

L’absence d’envie de vivre, hélas, ne suffit pas pour avoir envie de mourir.

Contemporary consciousness is no longer equipped to deal with our mortality. Never in any other time, or any other civilization, have people thought so much or so contantly about aging. Each individual has a simple...

You too, you took an interest in the world. That was long ago. I want you to cast your mind back to then. The domain of the rules was no longer enough for you; you...

Some people live to be seventy, sometimes eighty years old believing there is always something new just around the corner, as they say; in the end they practically have to be killed or at least...

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...

Rumor had it that he was homosexual; in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.

Najbardziej lubię koniec grudnia, kiedy ciemno robi się o czwartej. Mogę włożyć pidżamę, łyknąć środek nasenny, położyć się do łóżka z butelką wina i książką. Tak żyję od lat. Słońce wstaje o dziewiątej, zanim człowiek...

Allein die Literatur erlaubt uns, mit dem Geist eines Toten in Verbindung zu treten, auf direkte, umfassendere und tiefere Weise, als das selbst in einem Gespräch mit einem Freund möglich wäre – denn so tief...

Finalement, le plus grand bénéfice du métier d’humoriste, et plus généralement de l’attitude humoristique, dans la vie, c’est de pouvoir se comporter comme un salaud en toute impunité, et même de pouvoir grassement rentabiliser son...

Des créatures crasseuses et méchantes, brutales, parfaitement stupides, qui vivent dans le sang, la haine et leurs propres excréments. Ils s’agglutinent là, dans la nuit, comme de grosses mouches à merde autour de vitrines de...

De plus en plus, les théories qui tentaient d’expliquer les phénomènes économiques, de prévoir leurs évolutions, lui apparaissaient a peu prés également inconsistantes, hasardeuses, elle était de plus en plus tentée de les assimiler a...

For myself, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to own a Rolex, a pair of Nikes or a BMW Z3; in fact, I had never succeeded in identifying the slightest difference between designer goods and...

I was lucky to meet you, yes.”Me too . . .’ she said, looking me in the eyes. ‘I was lucky too. The men I know are a disaster, not one of them believes in...

As I finished my rice, I sketched out the plot of a pornographic adventure film called The Massage Room. Sirien, a young girl from northern Thailand, falls hopelessly in love with Bob, an American student...

It is possible to construct a history which is logically consistent. It cannot be said to be true; simply that it can be sustained without contradiction. Under a given set of experimental conditions, a finite...

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.

Il me dit: « Vous avez dû avoir peur. » Je réponds oui pour ne pas faire d’histoires, mais en fait je n’ai pas eu peur du tout, j’ai juste eu l’impression que j’allais crever...

The Enlightened One, if he had meditated on it, would not necessarily have rejected a technical solution.

La seule chance de survie, lorsqu’on est sincèrement épris, consiste à le dissimuler à la femme qu’on aime, à feindre en toutes circonstances un léger détachement. Quelle tristesse, dans cette simple constatation !… Il ne...

Del amor me cuesta hablar. Ahora estoy seguro de que Valérie fue una radiante excepción. Se contaba entre esos seres capaces de dedicar su vida a la felicidad de otra persona, de convertir esa felicidad...

she had graduated from the Beaux Arts in Caen. She worked entirely on her body, she explained to me; I looked at her anxiously as she opened her portfolio. I was hoping she wasn’t going...

Las flores son sólo órganos sexuales, vaginas abigarradas que adornan la superficie del mundo, entregadas a la lubricidad de los insectos.

Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.

People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things – even tragedy – with a sense of irony. There’s some truth in it;...

La solitude à deux est l’enfer consenti.

That’s precisely what’s so extraordinary about you, you enjoy giving pleasure. Offering your body as an object of pleasure, giving pleasure unselfishly: that’s what Westerners don’t know how to do any more. They’ve completely lost...

A fi artist, în ochii lui însemna înainte de toate să fii supus. Supus unor mesaje misterioase, imprevizibile, care, în lipsa de ceva mai bun și în absența oricărei credințe religioase, se cuveneau calificate drept...

La nostalgia no es un sentimiento estético, ni siquiera está ligada al recuerdo de la felicidad, se siente nostalgia de un lugar simplemente porque uno ha vivido ahí, poco importa si bien o mal; el...

The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.

The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes. Whether the life is tragic or enlightened, the classic gravestone inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death...

Oferecer o corpo como objeto agradavável, dar gratuitamente prazer: é isso o que os ocidentais não sabem mais fazer. Perderam totalmente o senso da doação. Podem até se esforçar, mas não conseguem mais sentir o...

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...

Esther n’était certainement pas bien éduquée au sens habituel du terme, jamais l’idée ne lui serait venue de vider un cendrier ou de débarrasser le relief de ses repas, et c’est sans la moindre gêne...

Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.

On fréquente les gens pendant des années, parfois des dizaines d’années, en s’habituant peu à peu à éviter les questions personnelles et les sujets réellement importants ; mais on garde l’espoir que plus tard, dans...

It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it’s that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.

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...

L’avantage de tenir un discours moral, c’est que ce type de propos a été soumis à une censure si forte, et depuis tant d’années, qu’il provoque un effet d’incongruité et attire aussitôt l’attention de l’interlocuteur...

Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more.