Personal identity seems like it's just such an American archetype, from Holly Golightly re-inventing herself in 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby.' It seems like the sort of archetypal American issue. If you're given the freedom to be anything, or be anyone, what do you do with it?
Chuck Palahniuk
Related Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill JUDE WATSON It SMELLS ancient," - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON Palm trees were fanned by a warm, light breeze, and they rolled down their windows to smell the sea. JUDE WATSON I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people ... MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX Let's head out to the ruins." - Dan Cahill ROLAND SMITH About f-f-ace!" she said to the horse, flailing with her boots. "Into the barn, please. It's time fo... PETER LERANGIS You see?" Damien leaned over his desk and spread out half a dozen charcoal sketches. "These are only... RICK RIORDAN I'm still a big 'Grey's Anatomy' fan. BROOKE ELLIOTT I used to watch 'Grey's Anatomy' pretty religiously. ERINN HAYES In America, you're just an American. You're accepted. It doesn't matter that you're ... BENEDICT WONG I've got a few ideas," (Amy) admitted. "But I don't know where we're going in the long term. I mean ... RICK RIORDAN Alas, I think I am becoming a god. TITUS Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name. LUCAN I have a wife, I have sons: all of them hostages given to fate. LUCAN I've learned the lesson that when you're in the middle of something that seems overwhelming,... LEE ANN WOMACK I always find Victoria's Secret models a bit weird. EDIE CAMPBELL Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "Olga knows the way." "Funny name for an aircraft... GORDON KORMAN Everything feels like you're in slow motion and everything you do seems like it's about two ... TONY PARKER At the end of the day, it seems like there's a critic archetype for food movies, like with '... JON FAVREAU Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. SENECA Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness. SENECA We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing. SENECA Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take... SENECA Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life. SENECA Luck is where opportunity meets preparation. SENECA Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures. SENECA There's something about guitars, they're just so big, you know what I mean? You're just ... ZOOEY DESCHANEL Before 'Grey's Anatomy,' I was doing musicals, plays, commercials, you name it. CHANDRA WILSON Comedy is such a vulnerable thing. With drama, you're not trying to make someone cry. If you do,... HARLEY QUINN SMITH Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you'... TOM WAITS I think you need to be intentional at times about your leadership - where you're eating lunch, w... AARON RODGERS I'm proud to say that I was that guy playing the character of Dr. Burke on 'Grey's Anato... ISAIAH WASHINGTON I don't care if you're Republican or a Democrat or a Liberal, getting crucified for the way ... ANGIE HARMON When you are honest in your comedy, you have to acknowledge the world that you're in. Through a ... TREVOR NOAH Freedom is the core of all human progress. It believes that nothing's given to us, but if you... CONNIE MACK IV I like to describe 'Yellowstone' is 'The Great Gatsby' on the largest ranch in Monta... TAYLOR SHERIDAN It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Brana... ANTHONY HOPKINS It's such a stressful environment, I find, being an actor, being put in the chair and 'Touch... PADDY CONSIDINE Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could jus... TODD PHILLIPS Red carpets are awful. They're like a kind of purgatory - you stand there, and there are cameras... ELIZABETH DEBICKI If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sou... STEPHEN SONDHEIM If you're raised Methodist, Catholicism is a bit of a workout. It's sort of like you're ... DOUGLAS CARTER BEANE The business is so international now; you'll be working on an American film, and you'll star... IMOGEN POOTS What I believe in and the way I work with my clients is we're so quick to say what we don't ... BRAD GORESKI I find it irresponsible to go, 'She's an actress, what does she know?' That means if you... EVA LONGORIA I'm from Indiana. I know what you're thinking, Indiana... Mafia. But in Indiana it's not... JIM GAFFIGAN Writing is always a restorative process. It's like paddling a kayak. When you're writing, yo... TABITHA KING But I think it's more that when you're young, you're invincible, you're immortal - o... DAMIEN HIRST I've had it up to my ears with the personal mythology. It's getting kind of personally sicke... SAM SHEPARD In productions such as 'Anna Bolena' and 'Rigoletto,' the costumes are tailored, and... STEPHEN COSTELLO I feel like it's such an exercise in, like, several things to read a ton of 'Cosmo's or ... MEGAN AMRAM Television is such an evolving medium. When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just s... CHRIS PRATT If it seems like you're doing work when you're acting, then you're doing something wrong... PARKER STEVENSON Doing theater anywhere, especially in L.A., is a constant uphill battle, and there's also the un... FINN WITTROCK It's just like high school. If you're a freshman or a sophomore, it's hard to tell the s... TONY ROMO That's an amazing feeling, to walk onstage, and you're not thinking about anything, you'... ERIC MCCORMACK If you're doing this because you feel like you have a burning desire to do it, then you'll f... TRISHA YEARWOOD I love kids. But that's such a big commitment. And it seems long-term. It seems like a commitmen... ELLEN DEGENERES The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scot... AZAR NAFISI Beer. It always seems like such a good idea at the time, doesn't it? What's worse is beer se... STEVEN HALL I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still fu... CONSTANCE WU Posing on the red carpet feels like you're selling something that has nothing to do with you. If... CAREY MULLIGAN One of my favourite books of all time: 'The Great Gatsby'. I just think it's so well wri... DANIELLE DE NIESE It's weird how people were always asking us, 'Are you real? Are you joking?' That seems ... YOLANDI VISSER I'm afraid of everything. But maybe when you're afraid of everything, it sort of seems like ... NATALIE PORTMAN I think that one of Tim's great qualities and abilities is in what seems like a thumbnail sketch... ALBERT FINNEY In France, if you have any sort of talent, you'd better keep it here. And if you're going to... JEAN RENO Success is a terrible thing and a wonderful thing. If you can enjoy it, it's wonderful. If it st... GENE WILDER You're lucky enough in television to always be at it, to always be doing it. It's like you... ELISHA CUTHBERT I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appea... DEMETRI MARTIN If you're you, it doesn't matter if you're the most boring person in the world: someone ... LIL UZI VERT It seems to limit you; when you're working in an office, you're a creature in a small cell u... JACK VANCE When you're in the day-to-day grind, it just seems like it's another step along the way. But... CAL RIPKEN, JR. It's a strange thing that we're actors, and we're always playing a character, and then s... RACHEL BROSNAHAN When a child wants to be accepted, he'll do anything. And if it means you're getting a certa... ADEWALE AKINNUOYE-AGBAJE If you're an unattractive girl who's trying to be beautiful with Botox, forget it. If you ar... STEVIE NICKS I think it's particularly a distinctively American concept that resonates with American culture ... RYAN HURST Sometimes you'll see people give performances in comedy with an ironic detachment where they'... ZACH WOODS If you think you know where you're going to be 10 years from now, that's where you're at... LARRY POONS I don't really consider myself an American filmmaker like, say, Ron Howard might be considered a... QUENTIN TARANTINO When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just shoot for six weeks and you're in an... CHRIS PRATT You're always in a box, and you're an escape artist if you do what I do - or if you're a... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Don't try to be what you're not. If you're nervous, be nervous. If you're shy, be sh... ADRIANA LIMA We make music for a living. Like I've always said, if you like what you're doing, you're... EDDIE VAN HALEN It's about knowing yourself and what you're good at. Females, males - anyone can be anything... PAYAL KADAKIA Eddie Murphy said once in an interview that nothing is offensive if it's funny. I sort of agree ... ARTIE LANGE When you're editing, you're putting it together in a way that makes sense metaphysically. Yo... D. A. PENNEBAKER The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether i... KARIN SLAUGHTER 'Smallville' is like a Domino's pizza. While you're eating, you're thinking, ... IRA GLASS My advice to actors? To successful actors, it's, 'sock it away,' and unsuccessful actors... STEPHEN LANG What bothers me, I guess, is when I get these messages from girls on Twitter, and they're like, ... CARA DELEVINGNE People always assume that, if you're an actor who's been on anything from which you're r... SHERYL LEE I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, yo... BARACK OBAMA There's nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you're meant to do. ... MIKE NICHOLS If you don't have a Facebook, like, you're nobody. There's all of these sort of requirem... TAISSA FARMIGA It's interesting how we often can't see the ways in which we are being strong - like, you ca... LENA DUNHAM Once you're involved in a business, it's part of what you do. It's the way you are. BEN ELLIOT If you're in California, and it's raining, stay home because nobody can drive in the rain. I... ADAM FERRARA What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging a... JOSS WHEDON
More Chuck Palahniuk
You must realize that one day you will die. Until then you are worthless. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The bright future is that readers are accepting more varied forms of stories. CHUCK PALAHNIUK More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You are not a beautiful, unique snowflake... This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Of the big horror movies of the '70s, you have 'The Omen,' 'The Sentinel,' '... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The best thing about getting a flu shot is that you never again need to wash your hands. That's ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. CHUCK PALAHNIUK My private history in terms of people in my life who are dead is very easy to discuss. I don't f... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens jus... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My goal is to create a metaphor that changes our reality by charming people into considering their w... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - pai... CHUCK PALAHNIUK People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were scare... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that's usually how you end up crying? CHUCK PALAHNIUK The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it, beca... CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you start in the pit of despair with these profane, awful things, even a glimmer of hope or aware... CHUCK PALAHNIUK A film has to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience. CHUCK PALAHNIUK My grandfather was hit over the head by a crane boom in Seattle. Some of the family claimed he was n... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Movie brawls tend to be bloodless and quick. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You decide your own level of involvement. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolis... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? CHUCK PALAHNIUK The most boring thing in the entire world is nudity. The second most boring thing is honesty. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in a... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run f... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open. CHUCK PALAHNIUK What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of yo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring. CHUCK PALAHNIUK For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. CHUCK PALAHNIUK It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Ok. You fuck me, then snub me. You love me, you hate me. You show me a sensitive side, then you turn... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't. CHUCK PALAHNIUK There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We'll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Beca... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct... CHUCK PALAHNIUK A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm. CHUCK PALAHNIUK What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step, too. CHUCK PALAHNIUK When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat? CHUCK PALAHNIUK A menos que todo empeore, nada puede mejorar. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. CHUCK PALAHNIUK What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK No matter how much you love someone, you still want to have you own way. CHUCK PALAHNIUK A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?" "Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, b... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I used rebellion as a way to hide out. We use criticism as a fake participation. CHUCK PALAHNIUK On the other side of the handrail, the hallway's gray marble floor looks as if we've climbed a stair... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Love me, I'll be anyobdy you want me to be. Use me. Change me. I can be thin with big breasts and bi... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Maybe this is why so many serial killers work in pairs. It's nice not to feel alone in a world full ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Just remember, the same as a spectacular Vogue magazine, remember that no matter how close you follo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Disaster is a natural part of my evolution. Toward tragedy and dissolution. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you tell folks you're a college student, folks are so impressed. You can be a student in anything... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as being a man means looking the w... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teet... CHUCK PALAHNIUK That old saying, how you always hurt the one you love, well, it works both ways CHUCK PALAHNIUK College is like a fountain of knowledge - and the students are there to drink CHUCK PALAHNIUK “Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You can kill a lifetime without feeling anything but skin. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Did you ever think about life as a metaphor for television? CHUCK PALAHNIUK On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. CHUCK PALAHNIUK And maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Only after disaster can we be ressurected. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Imagine books and music and movies being filtered and homogenized. Certified. Approved for consumpti... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some bline, random disaster, or some sud... CHUCK PALAHNIUK People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love. CHUCK PALAHNIUK While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes availa... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Las Vegas looks the way you'd imagine heaven must look at night. CHUCK PALAHNIUK It's easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Recycling and speed limits are bullshit. They're like someone who quits smoking on his deathbed. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Maybe we should always assume the worst. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching. CHUCK PALAHNIUK We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive.... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The truth is, every son raised by a single mom is pretty much born married. I don't know, but until ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The first step to eternal life, is you have to die. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person? CHUCK PALAHNIUK If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character... CHUCK PALAHNIUK When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves. CHUCK PALAHNIUK When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details you'd... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You can't base your life on the past or the present. You have to tell me about your future. CHUCK PALAHNIUK On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I dread the promotion part of my job. It's agony, especially compared to the private, at-home jo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Jack Palance was my distant uncle - that's the family gossip. Growing up, my family knew everyth... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Our Generation has had no Great war, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is ou... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unco... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My best advice for writers is: Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK With a book, you're guaranteed the audience has a certain skill level and that the audience has ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK If there had been zombies on the iceberg when the Titanic hit it, that would have made a much better... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home... it's your responsibili... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage. CHUCK PALAHNIUK We're making the same mistakes we made 1,000 years ago. So they must be the right ones. So relax... CHUCK PALAHNIUK What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? They seem like gr... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My first four books, from 'Fight Club' to 'Choke,' dealt with personal identity issu... CHUCK PALAHNIUK In 2008, while the film version of my book 'Choke' was coming to market, my mother was diagn... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Mr. Olsen in the fifth grade made me want to be a writer. He said, 'Chuck, you do this really we... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I know that I'm going to die and that you're going to die. I can't do anything about tha... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Maybe it's better just living the way you figure life is when you're a kid. Before you get too smart... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Real smart begins when you quit quoting other people. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You hear the best stories from ordinary people. That sense of immediacy is more real to me than a lo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their dis... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Beginning with Santa Claus as a cognitive exercise, a child is encouraged to share the same idea of ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I say let me never be complete, I say may I never be content,I say deliver me from Swedish furniture... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You have to give up! you have to give up! You have to realize that someday you will die, U... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Big Brother fills us all with the same crap. My guess is he was clever the same way everybody thinks... CHUCK PALAHNIUK It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I feel my heart ache, but I've forgotten what that feeling means. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will f--- you up, every time. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Find good in what the world says is evil. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Make me into anything, but just love me. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Give me lust, baby. Flash. Give me malice. Flash. Give me detached existentialis... CHUCK PALAHNIUK It's all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashio... CHUCK PALAHNIUK If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Most times, it's just a lot easier not to let the world know what's wrong. CHUCK PALAHNIUK No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed fee... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Gu... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My father worked for the railroad, and whenever a train crashed, we would go as a family and steal f... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We live and we die and anything else is just a delusion. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I would say any behavior that is not the status quo is interpreted as insanity, when, in fact, it mi... CHUCK PALAHNIUK People would ask me to autograph their bodies and then the next time I'd see them on tour they... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Every decade, we get a stunning collection of dynamic, heartbreaking short stories. In the past, tho... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Horror stories give us a way of exhausting our emotions around social issues, like a woman's rig... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. CHUCK PALAHNIUK HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing,... CHUCK PALAHNIUK With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels. CHUCK PALAHNIUK What I did was pour out about a gallon of Chanel Number Five and put a burning wedding invitation to... CHUCK PALAHNIUK If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn't it just lie there and rot? CHUCK PALAHNIUK Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Find out what you're afraid of and go live there. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The idea that population growth guarantees a better life - financially or otherwise - is a myth that... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I tell everyone I interact with what I'm working on and let them bring me anecdotes that illustr... CHUCK PALAHNIUK 'At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom' by Amy Hempel showed me the lean quality of prose. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you take my stuff apart, you'll find my choruses of repetitions are picked up almost verbatim... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Someday you will die, and until you know that, you're useless to me. CHUCK PALAHNIUK She's not wearing makeup so her face just looks like skin. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you knew that your life was merely a phase or short, short segment of your entire existence, how ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and glory of the world. To deconstru... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Sometimes the very best way to deal with unpleasant things is to depict them in ways that allow peop... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My only writing ritual is to shave my head bald between writing the first and second drafts of a boo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books - not because those readers are dumber th... CHUCK PALAHNIUK He was the kind of boy any young girl should date while she's still able to recover. CHUCK PALAHNIUK My secret wish is right now to be romancing this dead girl. A dead girl. Any dead girl. I'm not what... CHUCK PALAHNIUK One thing I really envy about my friends who have kids is that as their children develop, they'r... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You have no idea what it is like to constantly disappoint people. You see it the moment you meet the... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Tyler and me at the edge of the roof, the gun in my mouth, I'm wondering how clean this gun is. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. CHUCK PALAHNIUK I try to forget about the expectation that's out there and the audience listening for the next t... CHUCK PALAHNIUK In a way, a lot of my humor comes from presenting things that are dramatic or shocking and then peop... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The things you used to own, now they own you. CHUCK PALAHNIUK For me and my entire generation, we took on this kind of sarcastic, ironic, snarkiness because it se... CHUCK PALAHNIUK No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood ed... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justifie... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Hysteria is only possible with an audience. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have ... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things th... CHUCK PALAHNIUK With a gun stuck in your mouth and the barrel of the gun between your teeth, you can only talk in vo... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The things you own end up owning you. CHUCK PALAHNIUK No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide. CHUCK PALAHNIUK We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depre... CHUCK PALAHNIUK We just had a near-life experience! CHUCK PALAHNIUK This is why I loved the support groups so much. If people thought you were dying, they gave you thei... CHUCK PALAHNIUK It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you could be God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? CHUCK PALAHNIUK Being tired isn't the same as being rich, but most times it's close enough. CHUCK PALAHNIUK A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfec... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Masochism is a valuable job skill. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Someone bent on suicide won't have much sense of humor left. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Which is worse: Hell or nothing? CHUCK PALAHNIUK People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distrac... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sof... CHUCK PALAHNIUK Real discoveries come from chaos. CHUCK PALAHNIUK The future is just wasted on some people. CHUCK PALAHNIUK You can find fresh pain every time you discover what you pretty much already know. CHUCK PALAHNIUK If you dont know what you want, you end up with a lot you dont CHUCK PALAHNIUK Theres always the chance you could die right in the middle of your life story CHUCK PALAHNIUK Us. God's forgotten Science Fair project, left to grow mold. God's goldfish, ignored until we're for... CHUCK PALAHNIUK As if you cut open a rag doll with a sill name, and found inside:Real intestines, real lungs, a beat... CHUCK PALAHNIUK You are not special. Your are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic... CHUCK PALAHNIUK I tell everybody, i'm tired of being jerked around, okay? so lets just not pretend. i don't have fuc... CHUCK PALAHNIUK The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. without access to true chaos, we'... CHUCK PALAHNIUK