Fight Club Book Quotes

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

Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The first step to eternal life is you have to die. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea. ~ Yann Martel

I get a lot of letters from women who insist that 'Fight Club' is not just a guy thing. They insist that women have the same rage and need the same outlet. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I read. A lot. I read so much that some might call me a book whore. I can read about a book boyfriend who is a gritty biker in a motorcycle club or a sexy drummer in a world famous band. He can be a military man with a bad case of PTSD or a billionaire with a fetish for bondage and spanking. Any way you slice it, multiple book boyfriends are a hell of a lot safer to my feelings than one living, breathing, idiot who will eventually break my heart. I ~ Jemma Bell

Any time women come together with a collective intention, it's a powerful thing. Whether it's sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens. ~ Phylicia Rashad

Poshlust," or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances, and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic, and dishonest pseudo-literature - these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing, we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as "America is no better than Russia" or "We all share in Germany's guilt." The flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as "the moment of truth," "charisma," "existential" (used seriously), "dialogue" (as applied to political talks between nations), and "vocabulary" (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name - that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the tools of wrec ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I'll never recover if he breaks my heart. ~Brooke ~ Katy Evans

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. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Much-derided chick lit, chick flicks, and chick magazines have left ambitious women in a bind. Why is it that I, a young woman, can read 'GQ,' enjoy 'Fight Club,' and subscribe to 'Thrillist,' while the idea of a guy doing the same with 'Glamour,' '27 Dresses' and 'Daily Candy' is nearly unheard of? ~ Kathryn Minshew

Lately, even the Waybacklist borrowers seem to be missing. Have they Been seduced by some other book club on the other side of town? Have they all bought Kindles?
I have one, and I use it most nights. I always imagine the books staring and whispering, Traitor! - but come on, I have a lot of free first chapters to get through. My Kindle is a hand-me-down from my dad, one of the original models< ... > There are newer Kindles with bigger screens and subtler industrial design, but this one is like Penumbra's postcards: so uncool it's cool again. ~ Robin Sloan

It always pisses me off when I'm calling in to some Morning Zoo radio show to promote God-only-knows what - probably this book, so get ready, I'm comin' - when the DJ actually tries to convince me that there are as many female comics as male ones. Cue hypermasculine Morning Zoo Hacky McGee voice: "So Kath, I don't know what you chicks are always complaining about." To which I respond: "Really? Why don't you call your local comedy club and ask for the Saturday night lineup? I guarantee you the male to female ratio is going to be about nine to one. You dick-wad. ~ Kathy Griffin

If we wish for our country to have an exponentially brighter future, one of the things we need to change is the popular perception some kids have towards school. School is not a prison, it is not a night club, it is not a fight club; school is for learning, learning is the thing that begins the process of separating us from the animals. ~ Joshua Neik

Lifting a goblet of wine to her lips, Evie glanced at him over the rim as she drank. "What is in that ledger?"
"A lesson in creative record keeping. I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that Egan has been draining the club's accounts. He shaves away increments here and there, in small enough quantities that the thefts have gone unnoticed. But over time, it totals up to a considerable sum. God knows how many years he's been doing it. So far, every account book I've looked at contains deliberate inaccuracies."
"How can you be certain that they're deliberate?"
"There is a clear pattern." He flipped open a ledger and nudged it over to her. "The club made a profit of approximately twenty thousand pounds last Tuesday. If you cross-check the numbers with the record of loans, bank deposits, and cash outlays, you'll see the discrepancies."
Evie followed the trail of his finger as he ran it along the notes he had made in the margin. "You see?" he murmured. "These are what the proper amounts should be. He's padded the expenses liberally. The cost of ivory dice, for example. Even allowing for the fact that the dice are only used for one night and then never again, the annual charge should be no more than two thousand pounds, according to Rohan." The practice of using fresh dice every night was standard for any gaming club, to ward off any question that they might be loaded.
"But here it says that almost three thousand pounds was spent on dice," Evie murm ~ Lisa Kleypas

They've been talking about Pi, which I haven't seen, they've been comparing it to Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, and Fight Club, and I didn't see that either. ~ Joe Pantoliano

Having the book-club army embrace you is a gift that keeps giving for years. ~ Christina Baker Kline

When the 'Fight Club' movie was going into production, I quit my job so I could write full-time. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Sometimes, you simply must follow your heart," she said. "No reasonable man can blame you for that." A smile. "No reasonable woman can, either. ~ Leonard Pitts Jr.

If you're not a big club, you choose one competition and you fight in that competition and forget the others. Big clubs - we cannot do this ~ Jose Mourinho

A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse. ~ Edward Abbey

Start locally and build. Start small and grow. Start in your house, then move to your school, your book club, your gym, your church, your temple, your city. ~ Laurie David

As my future crumbled before my eyes, I grasped for the rope. My entire life's struggle was ending here, in plain view of my enemies. How was it possible? Had had I let things come to this? ~ Tony McMahon

Alan shrugged. "I love the CBC, really, but being voted its president - " "Co-president," Sputnik corrected. " - is kind of like being declared King of Nerds." "Co-king," Sputnik asserted. ~ J.M. Richards

I soon forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Until, that is, an old man shuffled in and propped himself, hunched and wheezing, over the check-in desk. Karen asked him if he needed assistance.
"No," he grunted sucking on his teeth, "your wet-T-shirt librarian with the punk rock hair is helping me out just fine. ~ Suzanne Kelman

Here follows the substance of what I said, written out entirely for your benefit. Pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad, when we get deeper into the story. Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can't forget politics, horses, prices in the city and grievances at the club. I hope you won't take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealing to a gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person? ~ Wilkie Collins

I am Jack's broken heart. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is like getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. ~ Melvin Belli

The 'coons had enjoyed a real party, and my trashcan had been the piñata! They'd obviously indulged in an evening of feasting on our wares and then staggered off the property loaded up with our birdseed as a little take-home gift! ~ Suzanne Kelman

This is one of mommy's friends, buddy," I told Gavin. (...)
"You're Mommy's fwiend?" he questioned.
Carter just nodded with his mouth open and no sound coming out. I'm pretty sure he didn't even hear Gavin. Someone could have asked him if he liked to watch gay porn while painting pictures of kittens and he would have nodded his head. Before anyone could react, Gavin pulled back one of his little fists of fury and slammed it right into Carters manhood. He immediately bent over at the waist, clutching his hands between his legs and gasping for breath.
"Oh my God! Gavin!" I yelled, as I scrambled over to him, bent down and turned him around to face me while my dad and Liz laughed like hyenas behind me.
"What is wrong with you? We don't hit people. EVER," I scolded.
While Carter tried to breathe again, my dad managed to stop laughing long enough to apologize.
"Sorry, Claire, that's probably my fault. I let Gavin watch "Fight Club" with me last night."
"Your fwiends got you sick the other night. You said he was your fwiend," Gavin explained, like it made all the sense in the world.
This just made my dad laugh even louder.
"Not helping, Dad," I growled through clenched teeth.
"You don't make my mommy sick, dicky-punk!"
Gavin yelled at Carter, putting his two little fingers up by his eyes, and then pointing them right at Carter just like Liz had done to him earlier.
"Jesus Christ," Carter wheezed. "Did he just th ~ Tara Sivec

The first rule of book club - is that nobody wants to talk about book club. ~ Douglas Lewis

We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine. ~ M.J. Rose

Never read the comments, Covey! That's the first rule of-"
"If you say 'Fight Club' to me right now, I will hang up on you. ~ Jenny Han

There is a social contract in "Fight Club" and in "Choke" where the protagonist has deceived a whole bunch of people. In "Choke" it's all of these people who think that they've saved his life, and really care about him because they've embraced him and they've been his saviors. In "Fight Club" it's all of these people who are dying of various diseases, and they thought that Edward Norton was also dying so they allowed him really strong pent-up emotions. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Sequels are very rarely a good idea, and in any case, the success of the book changed my relationship with the club in some ways. ~ Nick Hornby

Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much in replay as her own feelings could accomplish, or as his seemed able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject - and when he spoke again, it was something totally different. ~ Jane Austen

He never had time to read on the outside, but here he joins a book club where they discuss The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned and Tender Is The Night with a fervent young professor who seems unaware that anyone other than F. Scott Fitzgerald has ever written a book. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Or maybe when she realized that he was never going to come and rescue her, she did what all strong women do. She found a way to save herself. ~ Adriana Trigiani

There is comfort, even among strangers, when people find something they are equally passionate about. ~ Joyce Rachelle

Book-club night stopped abruptly when Caleb died. For almost a year and a half, as if by some type of tacit agreement, they all knew they couldn't be in the same room at the same time. It was as if their collective grief would multiply, rebounding endlessly within any closed space like an image in a house of mirrors, until the pain would overcome them all. ~ Francis Guenette

Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women. ~ Jami Attenberg

All his days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them. ~ Jack London

If I grew up with a dysfunctional family, I would eventually start a book club. ~ Martha MacIsaac

Why do we need so many people on Earth? I ask you. What are they good for? They live out ludicrous lives of pointless desperation. Ninety-nine percent of the human population is so much wasted resources. Stubborn vermin, we humans are.

Granted, in the past, the unwashed masses were necessary. We needed them to till our fields and fight our wars. We needed them to labor in our factories making consumer crap that we flipped back at them at a handsome profit.

Alas, those days are gone. We live in a boutique economy now. Energy is abundant and cheap. Mentars and robotic labor make and manage everything. So who needs people? People are so much dead white. They eat up our profits. They produce nothing but pollution and social unrest. They drive us crazy with their pissing and moaning. I think we can all agree that Corporation Earth is in need of a serious downsizing.
...
The boutique economy has no need of the masses, so let's get rid of them. But how, you ask? Not with wars, surely, or disease, famine, or mass murder. Despots have tried all these methods through the millennia, and they're never a permanent solution.

No, all we need to do is buy up the ground from under their feet -- and evict them. We're buying up the planet, Bishop, fair and square. We're turning it into the most exclusive gated community in history. Now, the question is, in two hundred years, will you be a member of the landowners club, or will you be living in some tin ~ David Marusek

You think I like this?" I say defensively. "Trust me, I don't need this headache in my life." I swallow a mouthful of beer. "Hey. You know Twilight?" He blinks. "Excuse me?" "Twilight. The vampire book." His wary eyes study my face. "What about it?" "Okay, so you know how Bella's blood is extra special? Like how it gives Edward a raging boner every time he's around her?" "Are you fucking with me right now?" I ignore that. "Do you think it happens in real life? Pheromones and all that crap. Is it a bullshit theory some horndog dreamed up so he could justify why he's attracted to his mother or some shit? Or is there actually a biological reason why we're drawn to certain people? Like goddamn Twilight. Edward wants her on a biological level, right?" "Are you seriously dissecting Twilight right now?" God, I am. This is what Allie has reduced me to. A sad, pathetic loser who goes to a bar and forces his friend to participate in a Twilight book club. ~ Elle Kennedy

Nobody quits the book club. Once you're in the club, you're in it forever. ~ R.L. Naquin

The girl I'd been just an hour ago was gone; she'd been obliterated. I had no idea who I was, now. ~ Amy Hatvany