On living in the Anglo-Saxon world

You can tell that this is the world that invented capitalism. There are private companies competing to deliver the mail, to collect the garbage. The other thing I’ve noticed is that men and women are more separate. When you go into a restaurant, for example, you often see women eating out together. The French from that point of view are very Latin. A single-sex dinner would be considered boring. In a hotel in Ireland, I saw a group of men talking golf at the breakfast table. They left and were replaced by a group of women who were discussing something else. It’s as if they’re separate species who meet occasionally for reproduction.

— Michel Houllebecq in The Art of Fiction n°206

Via rachelbdoyle.