This is why I loved the support groups so much. If people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.
Chuck Palahniuk
Related If people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. CHUCK PALAHNIUK Long-time viewing of Internet violence tend to change a person's temperament, making the person pron... YOU QUANXI If positive and healthy materials are absent, negative materials are sure to be dominant in the cybe... YOU QUANXI In a robust global business environment, our business units operated well in the first quarter. More... HARRY YOU The Board of Directors and I are pleased to recognize Peter's outstanding contribution to the succes... HARRY YOU We are pleased to close the books on 2004 following the painstaking review of almost five years of f... HARRY YOU They will hate you if you are beautiful. They will hate you if you are successful. They will hate yo... SHANNON L. ALDER "Always love people for who they are, not for whom you like them to be." ~ Tom Baker TOM BAKER AKA THE PONDERING MAN Do you remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and you really thought your folks were the best? Th... CHUCK PALAHNIUK When you see zombies, they're typically in a horde. A big group close together, as if they were just... DENNIS LIGGIO You never knew the last time you were seeing someone. You didn't know when the last argument happene... J.R. WARD The words I'm singing now
Mean nothing more than meow to an animal THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because t... MAGGIE SMITH I always saw the best reporters as ones you hardly ever saw other than when they were back in the ne... CHERI BUSTOS People are dying to tell you their secrets; it's just a matter of getting the conversation going... CHARLES MCCARRY So many times, people want you to stay the way you were, be as you were before because they want to ... MAXWELL Little drops of rain Whisper of the pain Tears of love Lost in the days gone by. ROBERT PLANT "THANK YOU" They say you cannot love two people equally at once,” she said. “And perhaps for others that is ... CASSANDRA CLARE "Some people are so selfish, they use you at their best and once their work is done, they don't e... SAURAV KALRA i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your lif... RUPI KAUR When you went to hear one of these people, ... it was their conviction that got you. They were each ... ANDRE WATTS We tend to go on loving the things the people who loved us loved. They are invested with soul, even ... ROBERT GOOLRICK I told them when they were doing it, I can take care of my family. But they insisted. I realized, wh... RON WASHINGTON You have a plantation where you have 10 white people and you have about 50 or 60 black people. The a... ALDIS HODGE why is it when you die people say good things about you, it's not like they didn't have the time to ... STEVEN ESPINOSA They Learn to speak... and when they were at level "AVERAGE", they started making the rules and star... DEYTH BANGER The Dolls were the forefathers of glam. You never knew if they were going to kiss you or punch you. ... SHAWN AMOS The Vikings thought they were big shots because they had boats. You know how obnoxious people get wh... COLIN QUINN It might be a different story at Arsenal because if you concede too much possession they can play th... CHRIS BAILEY If you deny people their own voice, you'll have no idea of who they were. ALICE WALKER When I came to this country in 1958, to be a dying patient in a medical hospital was a nightmare. Yo... ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS Jack: "..You were the only one I saw when I closed my eyes" Lexi: "Then why wasn't I enough w... K.A. LINDE You know, she stole the show. They were -- they were stomping on the seats for her. And I was just s... BLYTHE DANNER There were just wonderful people who were just waiting for something to do. I can't tell you how man... JALENE HITZEMAN It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper. ERROL FLYNN everyone's sphere became their own. If you were on the pile, you were appalled at what you saw in th... EMILY CRAIG [But she doesn't want to discuss the specifics of their relationship or any future offspring.] I lik... JENNIFER LOPEZ Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing. They always want to hav... EUGENE DELACROIX Are you often struck, when you become sufficiently intimate with other people to know something of t... C.S. LEWIS When you apply for local scholarships, people know you, and they want to support their kids and thei... BARB MACGILLIVRAY You really do learn every day with every dog; they are all so unique and different. But if you'r... EMMYLOU HARRIS Bottom line? As much as you wanted someone to change and believed they could, they were in cont... J.R. WARD These were guys who had been in situations where their lives had been in peril, so this was a game t... BOB EASON And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things... SHARRON ANGLE Terrible treatment. They'd kill you for any reason whatever. They had no hesitation. I saw people ge... LELAND CHANDLER It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened whe... JODI PICOULT Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once ... LIBBA BRAY People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because oth... MICK JAGGER Defensively, I think they're a good bit better than they were last year. They seem to be more active... BUDDY POUGH People were people, even if they had four legs and had called themselves names like Dangerous Beans,... TERRY PRATCHETT But I love you, and before you say it words do matter. They're not pointless. If they were pointless... CATH CROWLEY Actions speak louder than words. There is a big difference between what people say and what they do.... ALEXANDER OSTERWALDER Another great mistake is this; another understandable error is this: living to live the footprints o... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH People give you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween cand... HEATHER O'NEILL It is said that Indians were sometimes named for the first thing they saw when they were born. Makes... GEORGE CARLIN You prove to people that you don’t pay attention to their words when they see that you don’t rem... ISRAELMORE AYIVOR When you have children, you hope they don't do the same things that we did when we were young...and ... EDWARD G. BIESTER Don't waste your time trying to provide people with proof of deceit, in order to keep their love, wi... SHANNON L. ALDER I think you have to remember that Americans saw their purpose as so innately good that they could ex... NEIL SHEEHAN When people speak their own language you get a much better sense of who they are. BRUNO TONIOLI You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate. Let me tell you this. This... MICHAEL ONDAATJE They were very close. You never saw Sunny without Phillip and you never saw Phillip without Sunny. JENNIFER HITCHCOCK That's the beauty of argument-if you argue correctly, you're never wrong. , THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, 2006 You know what I have noticed? And this is really sad. Flying first class is less scary than flying c... HOPE DAVIS The vehicles and the people - you just would not believe the people. People were crying because thei... CLAY HOBBS Way, way back in the day, like in the 1990s, if you wanted to tell everyone you ate waffles for brea... ELLEN DEGENERES To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you... NNEDI OKORAFOR If two people are so unalike, as you and I, they are pleased when they discover points of agreement.... H.F. PETERS Because she knew that something happened to you when your mother didn't hold you close, or tell you ... JOJO MOYES If you can get away with it, go for it. We were short-cutting a lot of times and our guys were comin... MIKE DUNLEAVY A lot of people will try and never stick with it long enough. Most people could ride a unicycle if t... BARRY HOTRUM After Stand By Me came out people were telling me, 'You're so good,' 'You're going to be a star,' an... RIVER PHOENIX Start focusing your attention on the people that God puts you with, even if they hate you, even if t... PASTOR ADELAJA SUNDAY When people tell you they saw your last picture - well, the way they say it sounds like they hope it... BRODERICK CRAWFORD Well, you know, they were - they were a terrorist group. They - when I was kidnapped they published ... PATTY HEARST If you give people tools, [and they use] their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develo... BILL GATES There's a lot of haters out there. Instead of focusing on improving themselves they prefer to spend ... LISA NEWTON If your parents gave you fire to play with when you were two, you'd be standing in fire by the t... CAT POWER I always think, look at how people were before they were pregnant. If you were a toned, healthy, ene... HEIDI KLUM When people don't tell you the truth what they really are saying is they don't value you or their re... SHANNON L. ALDER You were taught how to do the things you needed to do. Dance, speech, fencing. They groomed people. ... NORMAN LLOYD REMAIN #YOU'!!!! When people challenge you, they are already threatened by you.. ... ABHA MARYADA BANERJEE When you really connect to someone, you can crack their soul of stone and see through them as though... SARA STRAIN When you're choosing furniture for your home that's supposed to express who you are, what yo... SHEENA IYENGAR One of the speechless situations is when the people you admire, people you follow, people you look f... HIMMILICIOUS I like the fact that I'm from the South and that I have this rich history behind me. I come from... KIMBERLY WILLIS HOLT They were a susitute. They were what you did when you couldn't have what you wanted. CONNIE WILLIS I'm trying to adapt - they say you have to adapt to vertigo. JASON DAY You can't assume that this person is worthless. You can't assume that they were a drug dealer. You c... ADREINNE YOUNG When you're alone and you feel sad, try reading a book. Try touching someone's heart. Try to imagine... MIZUKI NOMURA She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies ... J.D. SALINGER Words were different when they lived inside of you. BENJAMIN ALIRE SáENZ When people speak to you about others, listen carefully, for this is how they will speak about you t... MAICHEE SUMMER And of them is he who hearkens to you, and We have cast veils over their hearts lest they understand... QURAN Finishing a book is bittersweet. You spend days getting to know the characters. Learning their nuanc... WHIMSICAL ENLIGHTENMENT Once everyone thought you were crazy, they ignored you even when you told the truth. THOMM QUACKENBUSH Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that ha... HANYA YANAGIHARA If you were a purist about language, you might think that this was a disease that people were contra... MICHAEL ADAMS If something on the inside is telling you that someone isn’t right for you, they’re NOT right fo... MANDY HALE How would you feel if you owned a building for 50 years and someone came and told you they were taki... ANNETTE ANNECHILD
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 Personal identity seems like it's just such an American archetype, from Holly Golightly re-inven... 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 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