"The Elementary Particles"

Michel Houellebecq's two brothers seem to me such artificial constructs that I'm having a hard time keeping interested in them.

• The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes.
• Carried forward by the sweep of history and their determination to be a part of it, symptomatic individuals lead lives which are, in the main, happy and uncomplicated. Precursors, .. require a more detailed study.
• Sometimes he cycles cross-country, pedaling as hard as he can, filling his lungs with a taste of the infinite. He doesn't know it yet, but the infinity of childhood is brief.
• Everyday morality is always a blend, variously proportioned, of perfect morality and other more ambiguous ideas, for the most part religious. The greater the proportion of pure morality in a particular system, the happier and more enduring the society.
• He did not learn about Acaridae and the host of parasite with names like Italian film stars until later. But even now the image of his grandfather's coffin remained a happy one.
• Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so difficult to give up hope.
• the ideals of the entertainment industry: the destruction of Judeo-Christian values, the supremacy of youth and individual freedom.
• There's no point in trying to pass myself off as a dropout. I'm not young or good-looking enough and I'm certainly not cool enough.
• As a being you are self-aware, and this consciousness allows you to hypothesize that the story you've created from a given set of memories is a consistent history, justified by a single narrative voice.
• An animal's sense of self emerges through physical pain, but individuality in human society only attains true self-consciousness by the intermediary of mendacity.
• Words cross the space, the space between one skin and another. Unheard, unanswered, the words hang in the air and begin to decay, to stink;
• Life should be simple, Michel thought, something that could be lived as a collection of small, endlessly repeated rituals.
• He had to admit he had been wrong. What confered dignity on people was television.