Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

“When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.”

“Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you.”

“We love drama. We love conflict. We need a devil or we'll create one.”

“Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.”

“Picture the moment when your mom and dad first saw you as something other than a pretty, tiny version of them. You as them, but improved. Better educated. Innocent. Then picture when you stopped being their dream.”

“There's worse that people can steal from you than money.”

“You can say anything if enough people will listen.”

“You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble.”

“People in France have a phrase: "Spirit of the Stairway." In French: esprit d'Escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer but it's too late. So you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So, under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party… As you start down the stairway, then - magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put down. That's the Spirit of the Stairway. The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.”

“you're a product just as much. a product of a product. the people who design cars, they're products, your teachers, products. the minister in your church, another product.”

“You had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved.”

“I am an invisible monster, and I am incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse.”

“The damaged loves the damaged.”

“We have pain and hate and love and joy and war in the world because we want them.”

“Love and life belongs to great risk.”

“You're always haunted by the idea you're wasting your life.”

“Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.”

“You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

“Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against.”

“We'll never be as young as we are tonight.”

“The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and again. The truth is, you will be. And the secret is, this will hurt less and less each time until you can't feel a thing. Trust me on this.”

“I'm not straight, and I'm not gay. I'm not bisexual. I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map. A real adventure.”

“This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you”

“The more things you own, the more they own you.”

“The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.”

“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.”

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”

“You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.”

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character… Would you slow down? Or speed up?”

“A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?"
"Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.”

“If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.”

“Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you.”

“Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.”

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”

“Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.”

“Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly -- all these make for great stories.”

“We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

“You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.”

“Most times, it's just a lot easier not to let the world know what's wrong.”

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”

“If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.”

“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

“I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.”

“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.”

“Your heart is my piñata.”

“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”

“In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display.”

“It's not love or anything, but I think I like you, too.”

“A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.”

“If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?”

“Reality means you live until you die… the real truth is nobody wants reality.”

“If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible.”

“You have a choice. Live or die.
Every breath is a choice.
Every minute is a choice.
Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.”

“Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.”

“That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.”

“I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart.”

“Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.”

“May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.”

“People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

“The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.”

“More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.”

“Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?”