“You know, it’s the journalist who’ve given me the reputation for being a drunk; what’s curious is that none of them ever realized that if I was drinking a lot in their presence, it was simply to put up with them. How could you bear to have conversation with a twat like Jean-Paul Marsouin within being almost shit-faced? How could you meet someone who works for Marianne or Le Parisien libéré without wanting to throw up on the spot? Anyway, the press is unbearably stupid and conformist, don’t you think? —I don’t know, really, I don’t read it.”

—Michel Houellebecq