My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books - not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today's reader is smarter.

Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.

Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer . . . or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded--the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original]

My first four books, from 'Fight Club' to 'Choke,' dealt with personal identity issues. The crises the narrators found themselves in were generated by themselves.

The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.

You know that old phrase ‘Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it’? Well, I think those who remember the past are even worse off.