Quotes from book
Haunted

Haunted

Chuck Palahniuk

Haunted is a 2005 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. The plot is a frame story for a series of 23 short stories, most preceded by a free verse poem. Each story is followed by a chapter of the main narrative, is told by a character in main narrative, and ties back into the main story in some way. Typical of Palahniuk's work, the dominant motifs in Haunted are sexual deviance, sexual identity, homosexuality, desperation, social distastefulness, disease, murder, death, and existentialism.

“You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“Without animals, there would be no humanity. In a world of just people, people will mean nothing…”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“Pretty much always. We need to tell the story of our life to someone.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“Nothing happened, and nothing kept happening.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“They assume she was once gorgeously beautiful. Because now she looks so—bad.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“The truth is… you think what people want you to think.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“To some of us, the nights are too long. To some, the days.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

“The world will always punish the few people with special talents the rest of us don’t recognize as real.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

“Telling a story is how we digest what happens to us," Mr Whittier says, "It's how we digest our lives. Our experiences.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 21

“Some stories, she'd say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

“The whole idea of men creating perfect robot women for their own pleasure, it happens every day. The most "beautiful" women you see in public, none of them are for real. They're just men perpetuating their perverted stereotypes of women. Just the oldest story in the world. There's a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 15, Speaking Bitterness, A Story by Comrade Snarky

“You will always have some excuse not to live your life.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

“For the rest of history, all over the world, people will be trying to save this same dead woman. This woman who just wanted to die.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 9, Exodus

“Stink for privacy, the new way to protect personal space. Intimidation by odor.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady

“You are permanent, but this life is not," Mr. Whittier would say. "You don't expect to visit an amusement park, then stay forever.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 6

“Until you can ignore your circumstances, and just do as you promise," he says, "you'll always be controlled by the world.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

“Some stories, Mr. Whitter would say, you tell them and you use them up. Other stories, they use you up. p288”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

“What you have to love about drinking is, every swallow is an irrevocable decision. You charging ahead, in control if the game. It’s the same with pills, sedatives and painkillers, every swallow us a first definite step down some road.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady

“Her dress, swimsuit-tight, leotard-tight, her pantyhose run with women pedaling bicycles going nowhere at a thousand calories an hour.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Haunted (2005)

“The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. That's your big answer. The big truth. Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes round. We're the rocks. And what happens to us--the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse--why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 6

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