Palahniuk Quotes

Next, I'm holding a bag of clothes, being herded toward an open door filled with sunlight. My briefs are still looped around my ankles, so I'm waddling, my erection swinging in front of me like a blind man's cane, and the talent wrangler has the nerve to say, 'Thank you for coming... ~ Chuck Palahniuk

After a good-looking boy gives you rabies two, three times, you'll settle down and marry somebody less exciting for the rest of your life ~ Chuck Palahniuk

One day the wickedness of the kings of the world would destroy us, oh sorrow, and armies of the world would march upon us, wailing, and the purest of the children of God would have to deliver themselves unto the Lord by their own hand.
The Deliverance. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I wish I had the courage not to fight and doubt everything ... I wish, just once, I could say, 'This. This is good enough. Just because I choose it. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

All these mystics, throughout history, all over the world, they all found their way to enlightenment by physical suffering. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

When you reach the end of your life - trust me, you won't look back and savor the moments you spent alone. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If I did have a tumor, I would name it Marla. Marla, the little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you would stop tonguing it, but you can't. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Your folks are god, you love them and you want to make them happy but you still want to make up your own rules. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The old rule about how a thing of beauty is a joy forever, in my experience, even the most beauteous thing is only a joy for about three hours, tops. After that, she'll want to tell you all about her childhood traumas. Part of meeting these jail girls is it's so sweet to look at your watch and know she'll be behind bars in half an hour. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

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. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Screw the idea of inventing monsters. Here, we just had to look around. Pay attention. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If we all lived according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, life would be much simpler. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Kids grow up connected to nothing these days, plugged in and living lives boosted to them from other people. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It's nice to see something more pathetic than I feel right now. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted. I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell tastes like oranges and gasoline. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The fish is some­thing to make me set­tle in one place. Ac­cord­ing to church colony doc­trine, it's why men mar­ry wom­en and why wom­en have chil­dren. It's some­thing to live your life around. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Give me passion.
Flash.
Give me joy.
Flash.
Give me youth and energy and innocence and beauty.
Flash. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Imagine," Tyler said, "stalking elk past department store windows and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on hangers; you'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life, and you'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. Jack and the beanstalk, you'll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean you'll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

There will always be an underground. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The problem with being talented and gifted is sometimes you get too smart. My uncle Henry says the importance of eating a good breakfast is because your brain is still growing. But nobody talks about how, sometimes, your brain can get just too big. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Nobody used to look at George Washington, with his wooden teeth, in his powdered wig, and say, Fashion Victim. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Writing is like sex, if it's difficult you're not doing it right. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The club is too loud to talk, so after a couple of drinks, everyone feels like the centre of attention but completely cut off from participating with anyone else.
You're the corpse in an English murder mystery. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying, organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

A knife, it felt like a knife, and I'd discovered that despite everything that's happened, I still had an endless untapped potential for getting hurt. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I'm giving you my life to prove to myself I can, I really can love somebody. Even when I'm not getting paid, I can give love and happiness and charm. You see, I can handle the baby food and the not talking and being homeless and invisible, but I have to know that I can love somebody. Completely and totally, permanently and without hope of reward, just as an act of will, I will love somebody. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Jump ahead ten years, and not much has changed. Ten years of ther­apy, and I'm still in about the same place. This prob­ably isn't some­thing we should cel­ebrate. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Guevara, here's our next Fidel Castro, here's someone who's going to wave the flag.' And I was like, 'No, it's just a book. And if I beat that drum, if I play that song one more time, I won't have a career.' ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Like it or not, the road to Hell is paved with sustainable bamboo flooring. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

During the Cold War of the 1950s, American spies were issued eyeglasses with thick, clunky frames. If captured, they were trained to casually chew the curved earpieces, where fatal doses of cyanide were cast inside the plastic. It's these same horn-rimmed suicide glasses, the wrangler says, that inspired the look of Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello. All those young hipsters wearing death on their nose. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I'm not really into comfort books. There are too many of those as it is. Just sort of narcotic books, like my grandmother used to read. They have value like Paxil has value, but there's plenty of them in the world already. There's a shortage of confronting, stimulating, exciting books. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight? ~ Chuck Palahniuk

You grow up to become living proof of your parents' limitations. Their less-than masterpiece. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Some stories, you use up. Others use you up. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I asked Tyler what he'd been fighting.
Tyler said, his father.
Maybe we didn't need a father to complete ourselves. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Every character sees the world through a framework of education and experience that they're proud experts about. To write a character, find out what they know best, and THEN you'll know how they'll describe a "hot day." Or a "pretty girl." ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If Marilyn Monroe was alive right now, what would she be doing?'
Clawing at the roof of her coffin. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Please don't feel hurt, Satan, but my parents raised me to believe you didn't exist. My mom and dad said you and God were invented in the superstitious, backward pea brains of hillbilly preachers and Republican hypocrites. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

As we grow older I always think, why didn't I do more when I was young, why didn't I risk more? ~ Chuck Palahniuk

My only writing ritual is to shave my head bald between writing the first and second drafts of a book. If I can throw away all my hair, then I have the freedom to trash any part of the book on the next rewrite. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will f
you up, every time. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

An important part of building a new culture was allowing people to complain about their past. At first, the more they complained, the worse the past would seem. But by venting, people could start to resolve the past. By bitching and bitching and bitching, they could exhaust the drama of their own horror stories. Grow bored. Only then could they accept a new story for their lives. Move forward. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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.' ~ Chuck Palahniuk

No way could I fall in love. I just couldn't go there yet. Settle for less. I didn't want to process through anything. I didn't want to pick up any pieces. Lower my expectations. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I'm living the life I love, I tell myself, and loving the life I live. I tell myself: I deserved this. This is exactly what I wanted. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Verbs allow you to communicate a story in a much more converged or involuntary way for a reader. The verbs allow you to come in under the radar, below people's defenses. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If the prodigal son had never left home, the fatted calf would still be alive. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Your every emotion goes right over the top with a big audience. It's either laughter or tears, with no in-between. Those tigers in zoos, they must have a big opera all the time. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

For this moment, nothing matters. Look up into the stars and you're gone. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

When I visit my brother in South Africa, I order things I've only seen in zoos. Little deers and kudu, all the mammals you would never think of eating. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Give me needy emotional whining bullshit.
Flash.
Give me self-absorbed egocentric twaddle.
Christ. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Anytime you need to watch somebody die, die for real, check out how they get their orgasm at the end of a porn. Their mouth biting to get just one more inhale of air. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

Intellectual culture seems to separate high art from low art. Low art is horror or pornography or anything that has a physical component to it and engages the reader on a visceral level and evokes a strong sympathetic reaction. High art is people driving in Volvos and talking a lot. I just don't want to keep those things separate. I think you can use visceral physical experiences to illustrate larger ideas, whether they're emotional or spiritual. I'm trying to not exclude high and low art or separate them. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950's. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Jump to the day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter. Jump to the day another house will stand here and the people living there won't know we ever happened. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I'm only confrontational with my friends. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

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

To my mind, those who can, do. Those who can't, gripe. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Just let your hand drop; and let fate decide for you. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

While writing, I tend to repeat the same song, endlessly, for thousands of times. This helps me ignore any lyrics, and helps create a consistent mood for each book. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

By the time you turn thirty, your life is about escaping the person you've become in order to escape the person you've become in order to escape the person you started as. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

A culture of complaint. Of bitch, bitch, bitch... Most people would never admit it, but they'd been bitching since they were born. As soon as their head popped out into that bright delivery-room light, nothing had been right. Nothing had been as comfortable or felt so good. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The martyrdom of me. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I just want the days of my life to add up to something. The way every day of your life, the way it can just disappear in front of the television, Denny says he wants a rock to show for each day. Something tangible. Just one thing. A little monument to mark the end of each day. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The best way to waste your life, is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Nevertheless, if you ask me, most people have children just as their own enthusiasm about life begins to wane. A child allows us to revisit the excitement we once felt about, well ... everything. A generation later, our grandkids bump up our enthusiasm yet again. Reproducing is a kind of booster shot to keep us loving life. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Life's greatest comfort is being able to look over your shoulder and see people worse off, waiting in line behind you. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Waiters will always pee in soup, people will always fall in love. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If you want Neil Gaiman I could draw you a map. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

So you're the winner of this game show," Seth says, "and you get a choice between a five-piece living room set from Broyhill, suggested retail price three thousand dollars - or - a ten-day trip to the old world charm of Europe." Most people, Seth says, would take the living room set. "It's just that people want something to show for their effort," Seth says. "Like the pharaohs and their pyramids. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

You're a projectionist and you're tired and angry, but mostly you're bored so you start by taking a single frame of pornography collected by some other projectionist that you find stashed away in the booth, and you splice this frame of a lunging red penis or a yawning wet vagina close-up into another feature movie. This is one of those pet adventures, when the dog and cat are left behind by a traveling family and must find their way home. In reel three, just after the dog and cat, who have human voices and talk to each other, have eaten out of a garbage can, there's the flash of an erection. Tyler does this. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The big reason why folks leave a small town,' Rant used to say, 'is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason they stay put is so they can moon about getting out.'
Rant meant that no one is happy, anywhere. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Her mom and dad are both doctors and want her to follow her dream, not turn out the way they have, no matter how much it costs them. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The future is not a good place to start lying and cheating all over again. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I take a lot of flak from the counter-establishment for selling out. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

We'll never be as young as we are tonight. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It's one thing for my parents to behave all secular humanist and gamble with their own eternal souls; however it's altogether not all right that they also gambled with mine: They placed their bets with such self-rightous bravado, but I'm the one who lost. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Part of her doing suicide intervention is my caseworker has to mix me another gin and tonic. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

That's the big letdown you'll notice about filming a movie: No underline music. No mood music. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I was tired and crazy and rushed, and every time I boarded a plane, I wanted the plane to crash. I envied people dying of cancer. I hated my life. I was tired and bored with my job and my furniture, and I couldn't see any way to change things.
Only end them. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If people thought you were dying they gave you their full attention. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It took my whole life to buy this stuff. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Suicide is very contagious. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The se­cret is to not let your imag­ina­tion get car­ried away. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Give me pity.
Flash.
Give me empathy.
Flash. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The first week I was here, a girl got canned for humming an Erasure song while she was churning butter. It's like, yeah, Erasure is historic, but not historic enough. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I've been choking to death for years. By now this should be easy. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

These old people. These human ruins. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

When working, my diet degrades to pizza three times a day, because I don't want to distract myself from anything. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

As a mother, you're the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. ~ Chuck Palahniuk