Chuck Klosterman Quotes

“The villain is the person who knows the most but cares the least.”

Source: Downtown Owl

“The message of "The Winner Takes It All" is straightforward: It argues that the concept of relationships ending on mutual terms is an emotional fallacy. One person is inevitably okay and the other is inevitably devastated.”

Source: I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains

“If invited, you would go to this person's wedding and give them a spice rack, but you would secretly hope that their marriage ends in a bitter, public divorce.”

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

“If you meet someone who has the same first name as this person, you immediately like them less.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Nemesis

“Every time you talk to this person, you lie.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Archenemy

“If you stare long enough at anything, you will start to find similarities. The word “coincidence” exists in order to stop people from seeing meaning where none exists.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Archenemy

Chuck Klosterman Quotes about people

“I honestly believe that people of my generation despise authenticity, mostly because they're all so envious of it.”

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“Internet porn makes everything more reasonable -- once you've realized there is a massive subculture of upwardly mobile people who think it's erotic to see an Asian woman giving a hand job to a javelina, nothing else in the world seems crazy.”

“People who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation.”

“… because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“Do you know people who insist they like 'all kinds of music'? That actually means they likeof music.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Chuck Klosterman: Trending quotes

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“Life is rarely about what happened; it's mostly about what we think happened.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they're honest about everything.”

“Everybody is wrong about everything, just about all the time.”

Chuck Klosterman Quotes

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“I love the way music inside a car makes you feel invisible; if you play the stereo at max volume, it's almost like the other people can't see into your vehicle. It tints your windows, somehow.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“It is important to have questionable friends you can trust unconditionally.”

“I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack.”

Source: Downtown Owl

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Important things are inevitably cliché.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)
Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“It was the kind of love you can only feel toward someone you don't actually know.”

“It feels so exhausting to be so bad at something I loved so much.”

Source: Downtown Owl

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever in and of itself.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Gay marriage should be legalized in america because gay men are the only men who want to be married.”

“What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?”

“Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless.”

Source: Downtown Owl

“Every time I learn the truth about something, I’m disappointed”

“Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class.”

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Sarcasm is when you tell someone the truth by lying on purpose.”

“The Sims is an escapist vehicle for people who want to escape to where they already are, which is why I thought this game was made precisely for me.”

Source: Downtown Owl

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“We are always dying, all the time. That's what living is; living is dying, little by little. It is a sequenced collection of individualized deaths.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If cavemen had known how to laugh, history would have been different.”

“Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“The falling flakes were random and without purpose; the snow was drunker than she was.”

“I am ready to be alone.”

Source: Downtown Owl

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“Sometimes I think children are the worst people alive. And even if they're not—even if some smiling toddler is as pure as Evian—it's only a matter of time.”

“Styx and The Stones may break my bones but 'More than Words' will never hurt me”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“The goal of being alive is to figure out what it means to be alive.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“It doesn't matter what you can do if you don't know why you're doing it.”

“In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.”

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“It has always been my belief that people are remembered for the sum of their accomplishments but defined by their singular failure.”

“Observing someone without context amplifies the experience. The more we know, the less we are able to feel.”

Source: I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains

“This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.”

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

“The soul is a circle”

“We all eventually become whatever we pretend to hate.”

Source: Downtown Owl

“Saying you like "Piano Man" doesn't mean you like Billy Joel; it means you're willing to go to a piano bar if there's nothing else to do”

Source: I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains

“It's possible this whole "Why do Latinos love Morrisey?" question will haunt us forever. Fortunately, Canadian academics are on the case.”

“Even though I wanted to experience all these things I was interested in, I couldn't get them. So I had to think critically and culturally about what was available.”

“Do you understand? Do you see the forest through the trees? Do you not see what I am no longer not saying to you? If so—congratulations! Prepare to have sex constantly.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“Mostly, we argued about who which of us was better at arguing, and particularly about who had won the previous argument.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“But the bottom line is that I am still willing to die a painful public death, assuming my execution destroys the game of soccer (or - at the very least - convinces people to shut up about it).”

“Psychologically, the internet is very marxist. Everyone with a modem has access to the same information, so we all get jammed into a technological middle class.”

(George Will vs. Nick Hornby 0:86).
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)

“If this person slept with your girlfriend, she would never be attractive to you again.”

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)

“If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader really isn't sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend that they're amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the “form of funny,” which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Archenemy

“In fact, there may be a day in the near future when you find yourself in a conversation about this book, and someone will ask you what the story is really about, beyond the rudimentary narrative of a cross-country death trip based on a magazine article. And it's very likely you will say, "well, the larger thesis is somewhat underdeveloped, but there is this point early in the story where he takes a woman to Ithaca for no real reason, and it initially seems innocuous, but - as you keep reading - you sort of see how this behaviour is a self-perpetuating problem that keeps reappearing over and over again." In all probability, you will also complain about the author's reliance on self-indulgent, postmodern self-awareness, which will prompt the person you're conversing with to criticize the influence of Dave Eggers on the memoir-writing genre. Then your cell phone will ring, and you will agree to meet someone for brunch.”

Eating the Dinosaur (2009)

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (2005)

“You have punched this person in the face.”

“We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person who you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real--but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Nemesis

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (2005)

“People who barely know the two of you assume you are close friends; people who know both of you intimately suspect you profoundly hate each other.”

“Even eternally free people are enslaved by the process of living.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Nemesis

“We all concede that 'they' rule 'us'. But here is the secret shame of that amorphous entity that makes us all cower in shame: 'they' are losers. 'They' are failures. 'They' don't realize that life is-almost without exception-an absolute meritocracy, and everyone who succeeds completely deserves it. (The exceptions being Dale Peck, MTV on-air personalities who aren't Kurt Loder, Al Franken, and myself)”

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)

“The satisfaction you feel from your own success pales in comparison to the despair you feel from this person's personal triumphs, even if those triumphs are completely unrelated to your life.”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Things That Might Be True

“Were there really this many women in 1985 saying to their husbands, "Gee, honey, I'd love to have random strangers masturbate to a jpeg image of me deepthroating a titanium dildo, but there's no medium for that. Guess we'll have to watch 'Falcon Crest.'”

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Archenemy

“Seeing no resolution to my existential recognition of loss, I decide to eat lunch.”

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2003)

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (2005)

“You and this person once competed for the same woman, and you both failed.”