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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

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Intellectual Culture Seems To

Chuck Palahniuk

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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.

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If You Knew That Your Life Was Merely A Phase Or Short, Short Segment Of Your Entire Existence, How Would You Live? Knowing Nothing 'real' Was At Risk, What Would You Do? You'd Live A Gigantic, Bold, Fun, Dazzling Life. You Know You Would. That's What The Ghosts Want Us To Do - All The Exciting Things They No Longer Can.

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All Human Beings Search For Either Reasons To Be Good, Or Excuses To Be Bad.

Inspiration Needs Disease, Injury, Madness.

The Voice Says, 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.

If Death Meant Just Leaving The Stage Long Enough To Change Costume And Come Back As A New Character, Would You Slow Down? Or Speed Up?

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Dude, The Place Is Filling Up," I Say. "it Feels Like We're Living In The Bottom Half Of An Hourglass." Like Somehow We're Running Out Of Time.

Everybody Looks A Little Crazy If You're Looking Close Enough And If You Can't Look That Close, Then You Don't Really Love Them.

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At This Rate, We'll Never Get To The Future.

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If There’s Any Trick To Doing A Job You Hate . . . Mrs. Clark Says It’s To Find A Job You Hate Even More.

The Joke Is, We All Have The Same Punchline.

Anything You Can Aquire Is Only Another Thing You'll Lose.

Every Time We Burn A Gallon Of Gas Or An Acre Of Rain Forest, Aren't We Killing The Future To Preserve The Present?

What's Burning Down Is A Re-creation Of A Period Revival House Patterned After A Copy Of A Copy Of A Copy Of A Mock Tudor Big Manor House. It's A Hundred Generations Removed From Anything Original, But The Truth Is Aren't We All?

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Telling Some Stories, Miss Leroy Says, Is Committing Suicide.

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I Can Become Someone Else, Not Out Of Pressure And Desperation, But Merely Because A New Life Sounds Fun Or Interesting Or Joyful.

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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.

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A Good Story Should Change The Way You See The World.

All God Does Is Watch Us And Kill Us When We Get Boring. We Must Never, Ever Be Boring.

There Are The Most Fantastic, Beautiful Things And People Out There. It’s Up To You To Find Them.

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They're Just Words Is All. Powerless. Vocabulary. Dialogue.

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I've Been Choking To Death For Years. By Now This Should Be Easy.

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I Say Never Be Complete, I Say Stop Being Perfect, I Say Let... Lets Evolve, Let The Chips Fall Where They May.

The Problem With Educating Stupid People Was That They Didn’t Know They Were Stupid. The Same Went For Curing Crazy People.

Hey, You Created Me! I Didn't Create Some Loser Alter-ego To Make Myself Feel Better. Take Some Responsibility!

I'm Not Sure What We're Running From. Nobody. Or The Future. Fate. Growing Up. Getting Old. Picking Up The Pieces. As If Running We Won't Have To Get On With Our Lives.

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?

She's Not Wearing Makeup So Her Face Just Looks Like Skin.

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I Came To Party Crashing Because Accidents Happen. People You Love Will Die. Nothing You Treasure Will Last Forever. And I Need To Accept And Embrace That Fact.

Nothing Of Me Is Original. I Am The Combined Effort Of Everyone I've Ever Known.

The Truth Is You Can Be Orphaned Again And Again And Again. The Truth Is, You Will Be. And The Secret Is, This Will Hurt Less And Less Each Time Until You Can't Feel A Thing. Trust Me On This.

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Isn't A Kid Alive Who Doesn't Dream About Rewarding Her Folks, Or Punishing Them.

Rant Would Tell People: 'you're A Different Human Being To Everybody You Meet.

Actually, Watching Television And Surfing The Internet Are Really Excellent Practice For Being Dead.

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Inspirational Life

I Am Joe's Enraged, Inflamed, Sense Of Rejection.

You'll Need To Suffer To Make Any Real Art.

Some Stories, She’d Say, The More You Tell Them, The Faster You Use Them Up. Those Kind, The Drama Burns Off, And Every Version, They Sound More Silly And Flat. The Other Kind Of Story, It Uses You Up. The More You Tell It, The Stronger It Gets. Those Kind Of Stories Only Remind You How Stupid You Were. Are. Will Always Be.

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Invisible Monsters

So If You Think This Is Going To Save You...if You Think Anything Is Going To Save You...please Consider This Your Final Warning.

People Had Been Working For So Many Years To Make The World A Safe, Organized Place. Nobody Realized How Boring It Would Become. With The Whole World Property-lined And Speed-limited And Zoned And Taxed And Regulated, With Everyone Tested And Registered And Adressed And Recorded. Nobody Had Left Much Room For Adventure, Except Maybe The Kind You Could Buy. [...] The Laws That Keep Us Safe, These Same Laws Condemn Us To Boredom.

Real Smarts Begin When You Quit Quoting Other People.

How I Feel Is Cheap And Used, Dirty And Humiliated. Dirty And Tricked And Thrown Away.

Nobody Wants To Worship You If You Have The Same Problems, The Same Bad Breath And Messy Hair And Hangnails, As A Regular Person. You Have To Be Everything Regular People Aren’t. Where They Fail, You Have To Go All The Way. Be What People Are Too Afraid To Be. Become Whom They Admire. People Shopping For A Messiah Want Quality. Nobody Is Going To Follow A Loser. When It Comes To Choosing A Savior, They Won't Settle For Just A Human Being.

Sometimes The Past Seems Too Big For The Present To Hold.

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.

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Samuel R. Delany

Nikita Khrushchev

Sarah Michelle Gellar

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