Chuck palahniuk quotes

I think, in a way, I invented the term 'fight club' and that these things have always existed, but they never really had a label. Nobody had a language to apply to them. I created that language in two words and I've been paid a great deal of money for inventing two words and labeling something that has always been around.

Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

I don't know the difference between what I want and what I'm trained to want.

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.

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?

your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.

When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?

Books can create a depth of story, a background of information and ideas, that televison and movies can't. Sure, the television shows may shock, but only on a superficial level. They'd never risk market share to really explore the issues. They report, but don't analyze or suggest any new ways for living our lives.

People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.

It's creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos. What it's going to be, I don't know. Even after all that rushing around, where we've ended up is the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. And maybe knowing isn't the point. Where we're standing right now, in the ruins in the dark, what we build could be anything.

If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.

There's a big difference between "not caring" or being "nihilistic" about a topic and simply not being enrolled by the drama presented by other people. Just because my characters choose not to react in standard, socially-appropriate ways - that does not mean they don't care. They just reject ordinary dramas.

Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

There's an opposite to déjà vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger. Nothing is ever familiar.

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

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

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

The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.

When we die, these are the stories still on our lips. The stories we’ll only tell strangers, someplace private in the padded cell of midnight. These important stories, we rehearse them for years in our head but never tell. These stories are ghosts, bringing people back from the dead. Just for a moment. For a visit. Every story is a ghost.

The problem with educating stupid people was that they didn’t know they were stupid. The same went for curing crazy people.

I would say any behavior that is not the status quo is interpreted as insanity, when, in fact, it might actually be enlightenment. Insanity is sorta in the eye of the beholder.

If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love.

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.

Emotionally, in our minds, we get so filled with resentments where we've got a story about absolutely everything.

You spend your entire life becoming God and then you die.

What they don't teach you in art school is how your whole life is about discovering who you already were.

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

Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep...wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you....The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'

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

We live and we die and anything else is just a delusion.

Recycling and speed limits are bullshit. They're like someone who quits smoking on his deathbed.

I don't want to die without any scars.

The truth is, every son raised by a single mom is pretty much born married. I don't know, but until your mom dies it seems like all the other women in your life can never be more than just your mistress.

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

Las Vegas looks the way you'd imagine heaven must look at night.

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

When you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option.

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

I take pens and I write on the inside of my arm. When I'm with people and somebody says a really fascinating anecdote, or fact, or phrase, I'll write it on the inside of my arm. At the end of the day, I'll take the very best things that are on my arm and I'll copy them into a notebook that I always carry and only when the weather is absolutely terrible will I really key the very best of that notebook into the computer. At that point, it's all sort of censored twice - only the best things go from the arm to the book and only the best things go from the book to the computer.

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

If You Don’t Claim Your Humanity, You Will Become A Statistic.

It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed.

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

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

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

Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit.

Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.

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

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

Parenthood is the opiate of the masses.

You realize you have no control over how you're perceived.

My whole life is about forgetting. It's my most valuable job skill.

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

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. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.

By the time you read this, you'll be older than you remember.

You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?

It only takes one mistake and nothing else you ever do will matter. No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.

The only thing that separates us from the animals... is we have pornography.

How you're still always trapped. How your head is the cave, your eyes the cave mouth. How you live inside your head and only see what you want. How you only watch the shadows and make up your own meaning.

First your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.

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

I want you to invent it. I want you to have that skill. To create your own reality. Your own set of laws. I want to try and teach you that.

Angel says that rich people don't like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn't pretty and perfect. You can't put up with anything less than lovely. You spend your life running, avoiding, escaping.

This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.

History is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse.

The best fights don't occur between strangers. They occur between friends who trust each other.

If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?

Having nothing to lose is the new wealth.

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are…Or we can decide for ourselves.

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

I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.

Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.

When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details you'd never stare long enough to get if they'd even just return your gaze, this, this is your revenge.

If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't.

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

Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.

In truth, the degree of anyone's success depends on how often they can say the word yes and hear the word no.

If we can forgive what’s been done to us... If we can forgive what we’ve done to others... If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villains or victims. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.

This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

It's the Marilyn Monroe school of medicine where enough of any drug will cure any disease.

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

You see, life only turns out good or bad for only a little bit. And then it turns out some other way.

Every woman is just a different kind of problem.

The answer is there is no answer.

People don't listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.

Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!

The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.

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

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.

It only takes one mistake,' the Dan Banyan guy says, 'and nothing else you ever do will matter.' With his empty hand, he takes one of my hands. His fingers feel hot, fever-hot, and pounding with his heartbeats. He turns my hand palm-up saying, 'No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.' He sets the blue pill on my palm, saying, 'Do that one wrong thing- and you'll be dead for the rest of your life.

I always really curious to see how people interpret things. I know my version, and I'm kind of bored with my version so I want to see their version.

Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.

If you're going to read this, don't bother.

We've spent so much time judging what other people created that we've created very, very little of our own.

If you knew that your life was merely a phase or short, short segment of your entire existence, how would you live? Knowing nothing 'real' was at risk, what would you do? You'd live a gigantic, bold, fun, dazzling life. You know you would. That's what the ghosts want us to do - all the exciting things they no longer can.

What do you do when your entire identity is destroyed in an instant? How do you cope when your whole life story turns out to bw wrong?

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.

You become smart when you don't need to quote someone anymore." I am still stupid: I quoted Chuck Palahiniuk

Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal.

You couldn't have small, dying children in a movie without really bringing everyone down, but you can in comics.

We come from a generation of people who need their TV or stereo playing all the time. These people so scared of silence. These soundaholics, these quietophobics.

If you worry about disaster all the time, that's what you're going to get.

What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.

You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train?

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home... it's your responsibility to love it, or change it.

Help me give up my addiction to Hope.

Real smarts begin when you quit quoting other people.

Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations.

A good story should change the way you see the world.

There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.

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

I'm only confrontational with my friends.

Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.

Because after you've crossed some lines, you just keep crossing them. And there's no escaping from constant escape. Distracting ourselves. Avoiding confrontation. Getting past the moment. Jacking off. Television. Denial.

Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

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 laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.

I believe in something. But I don't believe that anything can hold a grudge for long enough to condemn its creation to eternal punishment. Nobody can hold a grudge that long, even God.

When you understand, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be.