Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.

I am nothing, and not even that.

I didn't use anybody's story. I used the context and the structure of the situation. People were so, so desperate to tell their story and begin to digest their experience - like turning it into a story - that after the fist few weeks I could go with a pad and pencil and take notes. People didn't seem at all bothered by that.

It's because we're so trapped in our culture, in the being of being human on this planet with the brains we have, and the same two arms and legs everybody has. We're so trapped that any way we could imagine to escape would be just another part of the trap. Anything we want, we're trained to want.

All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.

You can't be beautiful," Brandy says about a thousand times, "until you feel beautiful.

A writer's job is to cultivate what can go wrong. You're always looking for that dramatic arc of where things can fail.

You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.

I have a secret goal with my editor - he has asthma and uses his inhaler, and after I send him a new manuscript, I'll have his assistant phone me and tell me how many times he had to get his inhaler out while reading a draft. It's my secret laugh meter.

Be famous. Be a big social experiment in getting what you don't want. Find value in what we've been taught is worthless. Find good in what the world says is evil. I'm giving you my life because I want the whole world to know you. I wish the whole world would embrace what it hates. Find what you're afraid of most and go live there.

For the most part my friends can always be more entertaining than the tube ever can be.

My inventory of people who can save me is down to just me.

I figure if Eve could get us into this mess, I could get us out. After all, God really likes to see a go-getter.

Which is worse, hell or nothing?

I want my whole life lined with a topical anesthetic.

Today is just one of those days the sun comes out to really humiliate you.

If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.

From famous artists to building contractors, we all want to leave our signature. Our lasting effect. Your life after death. We all want to explain ourselves. Nobody wants to be forgotten.

Demon or angel or evil spirit, I just need something to show itself. Ghoulie or ghosty or long-legged beastie, I just want my hand held.

I like to get people moving and jumping. I think it's good to add more emotion and chaos.

You are permanent, but this life is not.

Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don't know what comes next in the story... clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.

Angel says that rich people don't like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn't pretty and perfect. You can't put up with anything less than lovely. You spend your life running, avoiding, escaping.

Look up at the stars and you're gone.

HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.

There's worse that people can steal from you than money.

I really love idiot, enlightened characters - these characters who fail to engage with the drama of their immediate circumstances; they fail to be reactive and enrolled by drama as it happens around them.

People don't listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.

Sometimes you do something, and you get screwed. Sometimes it's the things you don't do, and you get screwed.

I have an experience with as many of my readers as possible that's really genuine. I love it when they write to me, and I'm able to send them things. I love meeting them in person, and even if it's only for a moment I love having that physical, touching interaction.

Picture anybody growing up so stupid he didn't know that hope is just another phase you'll grow out of.

Everyone wants to be tested and challenged. Everyone would like a good, honest fight to exhaust their frustrations.

Imagine how you’d feel if your whole life turned into a job you couldn’t stand.

your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.

We thought all this teaching was to make us smart. What it did was make us stupid. With all the little facts we learned, we never had the time to think.

Tell the world what scares you most. Save the world with some advice from the future.

What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.

You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.

Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you.

Find value in what we've been taught is worthless.

Love and life belongs to great risk.

As young people we want something to slow us down and keep us trapped in one place long enough to look below the surface of the world. That disaster is a car crash or a war. To make us sit still. It can be getting cancer or getting pregnant. The important part is how it seems to catch us by surprise. That disaster stops us from living the life we'd planned as children - a life of constant dashing around.

I am Joe's Enraged, Inflamed, sense of rejection.

We've spent so much time judging what other people created that we've created very, very little of our own.

How can you possibly believe he really loves you?” Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier’s hand.“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved.

Even if you tell yourself "Today I'm going to drink coffee the wrong way ... from a dirty boot." Even that would be right, because you chose to drink coffee from that boot. Because you can do nothing wrong. You are always right. Even when you say, "I'm such an idiot, I'm so wrong..." you're right. You're right about being wrong. You're right even when you're an idiot. No matter how stupid your idea, you're doomed to be right because it's yours.