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Language, She Said, Was Just Our Way To Explain Away The Wonder And Glory Of The World. To Deconstruct. To Dismiss. She Said People Can't Deal With How Beautiful The World Really Is. How It Can't Be Explained And Understood.

-Chuck Palahniuk

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Language, She Said, Was

Chuck Palahniuk

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Language, She Said, Was Just Our Way To Explain Away The Wonder And Glory Of The World. To Deconstruct. To Dismiss. She Said People Can't Deal With How Beautiful The World Really Is. How It Can't Be Explained And Understood.

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The Photographer In My Head Says: Give Me Peace. Flash. Give Me Release. Flash.

A Little Old Lady Sitting At The Front Of The Bus Can Do Nothing To Change Civil Rights.

You Always Kill The One You Love.

What We Think Of As Halloween Is Really The Product Of Media Barons, City Mayors, And Candy-makers. You Know, Before The 1920s, Halloween Was Really A Terrible, Terrible Night.

A Minute Of Perfection Was Worth The Effort. A Moment Was The Most You Could Ever Expect From Perfection.

We're All Trapped. It's Always 1734. All Of Us, We're Stuck In The Same Time Capsule, The Same As Those Television Shows Where The Same People Are Marooned On The Same Desert Island For Thirty Seasons And Never Age Or Escape. They Just Wear More Makeup. In A Creepy Way, Those Shows Are Maybe Too Authentic.

The Damaged Love The Damaged. True Fact.

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

Fathers. Mothers. With All Their Caring And Attention. They Will Fuck You Up, Every Time.

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.

I Really Believe It's The Moments We Can't Talk About That Become The Rest Of Our Lives. It's The Moments We Can't Process By Telling A Story That Destroy Us In The End.

For Sure, They Don't Teach You This In History Class, But In Colonial Times, The Person Who Got Left In The Stocks Overnight Was Nothing Less Than Fair Game For Everybody To Nail. Men Or Women, Anybody Bent Over Had No Way Of Knowing Who Was Doing The Ram Job, And This Was The Real Reason You Never Wanted To End Up Here Unless You Had A Family Member Or A Friend Who'd Stand With You The Whole Time. To Protect You. To Watch Your Ass, For Real.

I Tagged A First-timer One Night At Fight Club. That Saturday Night, A Young Guy With An Angel’s Face Came To His First Fight Club, And I Tagged Him For A Fight. That’s The Rule. If It’s Your First Night In Fight Club, You Have To Fight. I Knew That So I Tagged Him Because The Insomnia Was On Again, And I Was In A Mood To Destroy Something Beautiful.

The Little Boy Smiled Back At All The Angry Faces Glaring In At Him. And The Little Boy Blew Kisses.

Language, She Said, Was Just Our Way To Explain Away The Wonder And Glory Of The World. To Deconstruct. To Dismiss. She Said People Can't Deal With How Beautiful The World Really Is. How It Can't Be Explained And Understood.

Help Me Give Up My Addiction To Hope.

What You Have To Understand, Is Your Father Was Your Model For God.

A Certain Number Of People Have To Live Their Lives Outdoors Between 8 A.m. And 8 P.m., And A Certain Number Of People Can Only Leave Their Homes Between 8 P.m. And 8 A.m. So Basically, Public Life Has To Be Lived In These Shifts, In Order For Everyone To Fit On The Streets Because There's Just No More Room For Any More Infrastructure, Any More Highways. So It Polarizes The Community Into Day People And Night People, And It Becomes Sort Of A Metaphor For Racism And Classism.

For Sure, Even The Worst Blow Job Is Better Than, Say, Sniffing The Best Rose ... Watching The Greatest Sunset. Hearing Children Laugh.

The Only Thing I Know Is Everything You Love Will Die.

Things You Love

You’ve Thrown Down The Gauntlet. You’ve Brought My Wrath Down Upon Your House. Now, To Prove That I Exist I Must Kill You. As The Child Outlives The Father, So Must The Character Bury The Author. If You Are, In Fact, My Continuing Author, Then Killing You Will End My Existence As Well. Small Loss. Such A Life, As Your Puppet, Is Not Worth Living. But… If I Destroy You And Your Dreck Script, And I Still Exist… Then My Existence Will Be Glorious, For I Will Become My Own Master.

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.

Griping Isn't The Same As Creating Something. Rebelling Isn't Rebuilding. Ridiculing Isn't Replacing. We've Taken The World Apart But We Have No Idea What To Do With The Pieces.

It's Only In Drugs Or Death We'll See Anything New, And Death Is Just Too Controlling.

The Last Story You Should Write Is The Most Important Story. You Should Start With A Story That Is Just An Amusing, Entertaining, Fun Story To Write And Learn Your Writing Chops With The Least Important Things Before You Start Applying Them To The Most Important Things.

It's My Petty Fear Of Personal Rejection That Allows So Many True Evils To Exist. My Cowardice Enables Atrocities.

I Try To Get Centered: Watching White Moon Face The Stars Never Feel Anger Blah, Blah, Blah, The End

Stanislavski Was Right, You Can Find Fresh Pain Every Time You Discover What You Pretty Much Already Know.

For Six Months I Couldn't Sleep. With Insomnia, Nothing's Real. Everything Is Far Away. Everything Is A Copy Of A Copy Of A Copy.

Besides, It Happens Fast For Some People And Slow For Some, Accidents Or Gravity, But We All End Up Mutilated.

My Books Are Always About Someone Obtaining A Power To Replace The Previous Sort Of Power That They Held.

I Still Love Him So Much I'll Hide Any Amount Of Conjugated Estrogen In His Food. So Much I'll Do Anything To Destroy Him.

I Still Love Him

This Is The Upside Of Already Being Eternally Damned

New Carpet Will Exude Poisonous Formaldehyde For Up To Two Years After It'd Been Laid. I Know The Feeling.

People Didn't Know Who I Was Or Why I Was There, So They Started Inventing Stories About Me. I Was A Registered Sex Offender And I'd Just Been Released From Prison And Was Being Forced To Do Community-service Work. I Was A Murderer, An Arsonist - All These Horrific Things Had Been Projected On Me Because No One Knew What To Make Of This White Guy Who Showed Up And Made Toast At 5 O'clock Every Morning.

You Realize That There's No Point In Doing Anything If Nobody's Watching. You Wonder, If There Had Been A Low Turnout At The Crucifixion, Would They Have Rescheduled?

Experts In Ancient Greek Culture Say That People Back Then Didn't See Their Thoughts As Belonging To Them. When Ancient Greeks Had A Thought, It Occurred To Them As A God Or Goddess Giving An Order. Apollo Was Telling Them To Be Brave. Athena Was Telling Them To Fall In Love. Now People Hear A Commercial For Sour Cream Potato Chips And Rush Out To Buy, But Now They Call This Free Will. At Least The Ancient Greeks Were Being Honest.

Falling In Love

No Fear. No Distractions. The Ability To Let That Which Does Not Matter Truly Slide.

Give Me Lust, Baby. Flash. Give Me Malice. Flash. Give Me Detached Existentialist Ennui. Flash. Give Me Rampant Intellectualism As A Coping Mechanism. Flash.

Coping Mechanisms

More Than One Side? You're Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Jackass!

I'm Always Looking For Context In Which People Tell Stories. In "fight Club" It's These Support Groups For Dying People, And Then In "choke" It's 12-step Recovery Groups. In One Novel It's Artists' Colonies, In Another Novel It's A Diary Form That Submariners' Wives Typically Keep So That When Their Husband Comes Back From Serving On A Submarine They Have An Accounting Of Their Spouse's Time. So I'm Always Looking For, Number One, A Non-fiction Context - Because You Can Tell A More Outrageous Story If You Use A Non-fiction Form.

Maybe The Truth Is I Really Want To Like You Instead.

The Unreal Is More Powerful Than The Real. Because Nothing Is As Perfect As You Can Imagine It. Because Its Only Intangible Ideas, Concepts, Beliefs, Fantasies That Last. Stone Crumbles. Wood Rots. People, Well, They Die. But Things As Fragile As A Thought, A Dream, A Legend, They Can Go On And On. If You Can Change The Way People Think. The Way They See Themselves. The Way They See The World. You Can Change The Way People Live Their Lives. That's The Only Lasting Thing You Can Create.

Ask Yourself: What Did I Eat For Breakfast Today? What Did I Eat For Dinner Last Night? You See How Fast Reality Fades Away?

I Don't Remember The Hotel Rooms Or The Airports But I Always Remember The Events.

I'm Fascinated By The Whole Issue Of Arousal Addiction, Which Seems To Be Mostly A Problem For Young Men.

Your Past Is Just A Story. And Once You Realize This It Has No Power Over You.

I'm Sorry If This All Seems A Little Rushed And Desperate. It Is.

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

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

Everyone's In Their Own Personal Coma.

...no Way Could I Fall In Love. I Just Couldn't Go There Yet. Settle For Less. I Didn't Want To Process Through Anything. I Didn't Want To Pick Up Any Pieces. Lower My Expectations.

Falling In Love

The World Can Be A Lot Better Than We Settle For. All You Have To Do Is Ask.

This Was Freedom. Losing All Hope Was Freedom.

Fight Club Book

Fight Club Novel

Waiters Will Always Pee In Soup, People Will Always Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

The Big Reason Why Folks Leave A Small Town,' Rant Used To Say, 'is So They Can Moon Over The Idea Of Going Back. And The Reason They Stay Put Is So They Can Moon About Getting Out.' Rant Meant That No One Is Happy, Anywhere.

The Best Way Is Not To Fight It, Just Go. Don't Be Trying All The Time To Fix Things. What You Run From Only Stays With You Longer. When You Fight Something, You Only Make It Stronger.

Art Never Comes From Happiness.

Ever Since College, I Make Friends. They Get Married. I Lose Friends.

You're Safe Because You're So Trapped Inside Your Culture. Anything You Can Conceive Of Is Fine Because You Can Conceive Of It.

I Take Pens And I Write On The Inside Of My Arm. When I'm With People And Somebody Says A Really Fascinating Anecdote, Or Fact, Or Phrase, I'll Write It On The Inside Of My Arm. At The End Of The Day, I'll Take The Very Best Things That Are On My Arm And I'll Copy Them Into A Notebook That I Always Carry And Only When The Weather Is Absolutely Terrible Will I Really Key The Very Best Of That Notebook Into The Computer. At That Point, It's All Sort Of Censored Twice - Only The Best Things Go From The Arm To The Book And Only The Best Things Go From The Book To The Computer.

What You See At Fight Club Is A Generation Of Men Raised By Women.

Make Me Into Anything, But Just Love Me.

Invisible Monsters

There's A Big Difference Between "not Caring" Or Being "nihilistic" About A Topic And Simply Not Being Enrolled By The Drama Presented By Other People. Just Because My Characters Choose Not To React In Standard, Socially-appropriate Ways - That Does Not Mean They Don't Care. They Just Reject Ordinary Dramas.

How Folks Lay Claim To A Loved One Is They Give You A Name Of Their Own. They Figure To Label You As Their Property.

Destruction Is Always An Attractive Idea. My Brother And I Used To Spend Weeks Making Models Of Cities So That We Could Destroy Them In 15 Minutes. There's A Fantastic Joy In Destroying Something That You've Meticulously Built. Then You're Free To Build A New Thing. Destruction And Creation They're Inseparable.

The One You Love And The One Who Loves You Are Never, Ever The Same Person.

The Unreal Is More Powerful Than The Real. Because Nothing Is As Perfect As You Can Imagine It. Because It's Only Intangibles, Ideas, Concepts, Beliefs, Fantasies That Last. Stone Crumbles. Wood Rots. People, Well, They Die.

Even If I Overcompensate, Nobody Will Ever Want Me. Not Seth. Not My Folks. You Can’t Kiss Someone Who Has No Lips. Oh, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me. I’ll Be Anybody You Want Me To Be

The Same Way A Compact Disk Isn't Responsible For What's Recorded On It, That's How We Are. You're About As Free To Act As A Programmed Computer. You're About As One-of-a-kind As A Dollar Bill.

There's A Moment In Every Book When The Book Turns And It Surprises Me.

Don’t Ask Me When Because I Don’t Remember, But Somewhere Along The Way I Keep Forgetting To Commit Suicide.

The Greatest Weapon Any Warrior Can Carry Into Battle Is Absolute Certainty Of Her Eternal Soul.

May I Never Be Complete. May I Never Be Content. May I Never Be Perfect.

I Ran. I Ran Until My Muscles Burned And My Veins Pumped Battery Acid. Then I Ran Some More.

What Makes Earth Feel Like Hell Is Our Expectation That It Should Feel Like Heaven.

I've Met God Across His Long Walnut Desk With His Diplomas Hanging On The Wall Behind Him, And God Asks Me, 'why?' Why Did I Cause So Much Pain? Didn't I Realize That Each Of Us Is A Sacred, Unique Snowflake Of Special Unique Specialness? Can't I See How We're All Manifestations Of Love? I Look At God Behind His Desk, Taking Notes On A Pad, But God's Got This All Wrong. We Are Not Special. We Are Not Crap Or Trash, Either. We Just Are. We Just Are, And What Happens Just Happens. And God Says, 'no, That's Not Right.' Yeah. Well. Whatever. You Can't Teach God Anything.

If You Don’t Claim Your Humanity, You Will Become A Statistic.

Quitting Your Job

If You Look At Old Pictures, Irene Casey Is So Pretty. Not Just Young, But Pretty The Way You Look When Your Face Goes Smooth, The Skin Around Your Eyes And Lips Relaxed, The Pretty You Only Look When You Love The Person Taking The Picture.

Have Your Adventures, Make Your Mistakes, And Choose Your Friends Poorly -- All These Make For Great Stories.

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. Everything Else About Their Checkbook Balance And Radio Songs And Messy Hair Went Out The Window. You Had Their Full Attention. People Listened Instead Of Just Waiting For Their Turn To Speak. And When They Spoke, They Weren't Just Telling You A Story. When The Two Of You Talked, You Were Building Something, And Afterward You Were Both Different Than Before.

I Haven't Had A Tv In 10 Years, And I Really Don't Miss It. 'cause It's Always So Much More Fun To Be With People Than It Ever Was To Be With A Television.

Shotgunning Anybody In This Room Would Be The Moral Equivalent Of Killing A Car, A Barbie Doll, A Vacuum Cleaner. We're All Such Products.

A Hotel, He Told Me, Was A Big House Where A Lot Of People Lived And Ate And Slept, But No One Knew Each Other. He Said That Described Most Families In The Outside World.

I'm Working Harder Than I Have Ever Worked In My Entire Life, But What The Hell, My Life Is My Job Now, And My Job Is My Life And That's The Way It Should Be.

The Money Is In Television. Books Are Not The Dominant Medium Of Our Time, So Fewer People Will Create Them. In A Sad Way, Books Have Become A Form Of "comfort Food" We Expect To Lull Us To Sleep.

It Seems That So Much Writing Is Being Done In The Nineteenth-century Model, Where Every Connection Has To Be Thoroughly Explained.

That’s How A Scary Story Works. It Echoes Some Ancient Fear. It Re-creates Some Forgotten Terror. Something We’d Like To Think We’ve Grown Beyond. But It Can Still Scare Us To Tears. It’s Something You’d Hoped Was Healed.

Somehow People Have Been Sold On The Idea That Only Professionals Can Entertain Them, That Only Professionals Can Sing Or Tell Jokes. And People Are Cut Out Of This Creativity Loop, And Creativity Is Being Limited To These Large, Centralized Voices.

Don't Write About Your Most Emotionally Charged Moment As A Learning Thing.

Maybe This Is Why So Many Serial Killers Work In Pairs. It's Nice Not To Feel Alone In A World Full Of Victims Or Enemies. It's No Wonder Waltraud Wagner, The Austrian Angel Of Death, Convinced Her Friends To Kill With Her. It Just Seems Natural. You And Me Against The World.

Daytime Television, You Can Tell Who’s Watching By The Three Kinds Of Commercials. Either It’s Clinics For Drying Out Drunks. Or It’s Law Firms Who Want To Settle Injury Suits. Or It’s Schools Offering Mail-order Vocational Degrees To Make You A Bookkeeper. A Private Detective. Or A Locksmith. If You’re Watching Daytime Television, This Is Your New Demographic. You’re A Drunk. Or A Cripple. Or An Idiot.

When Someone Walks In And You Say "a Six-foot-tall Man," You Miss The Opportunity To Describe What A Six-foot-tall Man Would Look Like To Your Narrator, Because How The Narrator Describes A Six-foot-tall Man Says More About The Narrator Than About The Man.

You Are Permanent, But This Life Is Not.

You Only Ask People About Themselves So You Can Tell Them About Yourself.

I Wanted To Destroy Everything Beautiful I'd Never Have. Burn The Amazon Rain Forests. Pump Chlorofluorocarbons Straight Up To Gobble The Ozone. Open The Dump Valves On Supertankers And Uncap Offshore Oil Wells. I Wanted To Kill All The Fish I Couldn't Afford To Eat, And Smother The French Beaches I'd Never See. I Wanted The Whole World To Hit Bottom.

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?

You're A Product Of Our Language, And How Our Laws Are And How We Believe Our God Wants Us. Every Bitty Molecule About You Has Already Been Thought Out By Some Million People Before You. Anything You Can Do Is Boring And Old And Perfectly Okay. You're Safe Because You're So Trapped Inside Your Culture. Anything You Can Conceive Of Is Fine Because You Can Conceive Of It. You Can't Imagine Any Way To Escape. There's No Way You Can Get Out.the World Is Your Cradle And Your Trap.

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.

The Girl's Lover Was Gone, But His Shadow Was Still There.

The Laws That Keep Us Safe, These Same Laws Condemn Us To Boredom.

A Child Who Is Disillusioned Abruptly, By His Peers Or Siblings, Being Ridiculed For His Faith And Imagination, May Choose Never To Believe In Anything- Tangible Or Intangible- Again. To Never Trust Or Wonder.

Worker Bees Can Leave. Even Drones Can Fly Away. The Queen Is Their Slave.

After You Hear Even The Shortest Great Story, It Should Fill You With A Little Bit Of Fear.

And If You Believe That We Really Have Free Will, Then You Know That God Can't Really Control Us. And Since God Can't Control Us, All God Does Is Watch And Change Channels When He Gets Bored.

For Thousands Of Years, Human Beings Had Screwed Up And Trashed And Crapped On This Planet, And Now History Expected Me To Clean Up After Everyone. I Have To Wash Out And Flatten My Soup Cans. And Account For Every Drop Of Used Motor Oil. And I Have To Foot The Bill For Nuclear Waste And Buried Gasoline Tanks And Landfilled Toxic Sludge Dumped A Generation Before I Was Born.

I Spent My Life Attacking Everything Because I Was Too Afraid To Risk Creating Anything.

People Take Conventional Ways That Other People Have Always Decorated Their Cars, And Use Them As Ways Of Giving Other People Permission To Approach Them.

We Just Had A Near-life Experience!

Life Experience

You Could Go Church And You Could Describe Your Worst Behavior, Your Worst Self, And Despite Your Worst Behavior You Would Be Forgiven And Then Redeemed And Then Accepted Back Into The Community Through Communion. So You Didn't Have To Carry This Burden Your Entire Life. Once A Week You Went Someplace You Went Someplace Where You Could Really Look Terrible And Be Loved Despite How Terrible You Were.

Brandy Is So Attractive You Could Chop Her Head Off And Put It On Blue Velvet In The Window At Tiffany's And Somebody Would Buy It For A Million Dollars.

Marla's Philosophy Of Life, She Told Me, Is That She Can Die At Any Moment. The Tragedy Of Her Life Is That She Doesn't.

I Feel My Heart Ache, But I've Forgotten What That Feeling Means.

Kids, She Says. When They’re Little, They Believe Everything You Tell Them About The World. As A Mother, You’re The World Almanac And The Encyclopedia And The Dictionary And The Bible, All Rolled Up Together. But After They Hit Some Magic Age, It’s Just The Opposite. After That, You’re Either A Liar Or A Fool Or A Villain.

We Live And We Die And Anything Else Is Just A Delusion.

What I Did Was Pour Out About A Gallon Of Chanel Number Five And Put A Burning Wedding Invitation To It, And Boom, I'm Recycling.

In Light This Bright, After So Long In The Dark, Everything We Can See Is Only Black And White. Only Glaring Shape-outlines We Have To Blink Against.

Black And White

I Take A Lot Of Flak From The Counter-establishment For Selling Out.

In A World Where Billions Believe Their Deity Conceived A Mortal Child With A Virgin Human, It's Stunning How Little Imagination Most People Display.

By The Time You Read This, You'll Be Older Than You Remember.

On Game Shows, Some People Will Take The Trip To France, But Most People Will Take The Washer And Dryer Pair.

Until You Find Something To Fight For, You Settle For Something To Fight Against.

This Wasn't Any Mere Song And Dance; Here Was A Bold, Blaring Declaration Howling Itself Into The Empty Face Of Death.

Hysteria Is Impossible Without An Audience. Panicking By Yourself Is The Same As Laughing Alone In An Empty Room. You Feel Really Silly.

People Die', She Says. 'people Tear Down Houses. But Furniture, Fine, Beautiful Furniture, It Just Goes On And On, Surviving Everything.' She Says, 'armoires Are The Cockroaches Of Our Culture.

You See, Life Only Turns Out Good Or Bad For Only A Little Bit. And Then It Turns Out Some Other Way.

When A Regular Person Gets Sick, They Take An Aspirin. When A Writer Gets Sick, They Take Notes.

Nothing Was Solved When The Fight Was Over, But Nothing Mattered.

Fight Club Book

Fight Club Novel

Recycling And Speed Limits Are Bullshit. They're Like Someone Who Quits Smoking On His Deathbed.

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.

It Can Only Take A Moment To Waste The Rest Of Your Life.

People Will Listen To You Only When They Know You're Dying, Otherwise They're Just Waiting For Their Turn To Talk.

A Guy's Calling To Say He's Failing Algebra Ii. Just As A Point Of Practice, I Say, Kill Yourself. A Woman Calls And Says Her Kids Won't Behave. Without Missing A Beat, I Tell Her, Kill Yourself. A Man Calls To Say His Car Won't Start. Kill Yourself. A Woman Calls To Ask What Time The Late Movie Starts. Kill Yourself. She Asks, "isn't This 555-1327? Is This The Moorehouse Cineplex? I Say, Kill Yourself. Kill Yourself. Kill Yourself.

I Am The Cause Of All My Upsets. I Am My Worst Enemy.

I Have A Lot Of Money.

You Love Me. You Ignore Me. You Save My Life, Then You Cook My Mother Into Soap.

The Worst Part Of Writing Fiction Is The Fear Of Wasting Your Life Behind A Keyboard. The Idea That, Dying, You'll Realize You Only Lived On Paper. Your Only Adventures Were Make-believe, And While The World Fought And Kissed, You Sat In Some Dark Room Masturbating And Making Money.

If I Could Wake Up In A Different Place, At A Different Time, Could I Wake Up As A Different Person?

After Long Enough, Everyone In The World Will Be You Enemy.

I Would Pay Snakes To Bite Her.

For Official Record, Announce Instructor, The State Requires No Epic Hero. No Strive Achieve Personal Celebrity Of Spotlight And Applause. Lectures Instructor, The State Desires Best Ideal Perform As Mediocre. No Gain Attention Showboat. No Buffoon. Best Effort So Occur Average. Suppress Climbing Ego. Become Ordinary. Invisible.

You Can Tell A More Over-the-top Incredible Story If You Use A Nonfiction Form.

A Writer’s Job Is To Cultivate What Can Go Wrong.

When Both Of You Are Beautiful, Neither Of You Is Beautiful. Together, As A Couple, You're Less Than The Sum Of Your Parts.

You Are Beautiful

As A Lower-class Kid, I Was Raised To Think Success Would Be Owning Stuff. Having That Great Job, Too. Now I Find My Parents' Dream Was Wrong. You Never Really Own Anything. And You're Never Really Finished As A Person.

Everything Is Still Falling Apart.

Our Purest Form Of Joy Comes When People We Envy Get Hurt. That Most Genuine Form Of Joy.

Big Brother Isn't Watching. He's Singing And Dancing. He's Pulling Rabbits Out Of A Hat. Big Brother's Busy Holding Your Attention Every Moment You're Awake. He's Making Sure You're Always Distracted. He's Making Sure You're Fully Absorbed. He's Making Sure Your Imagination Withers. Until It's As Useful As Your Appendix. He's Making Sure Your Attention Is Always Filled. And This Being Fed, It's Worse Than Being Watched. With The World Always Filling You, No One Has To Worry About What's In Your Mind. With Everyone's Imagination Atrophied, No One Will Ever Be A Threat To The World.

Optimism Is The First Symptom That Any Disease Is Fatal.

There Is A Social Contract In "fight Club" And In "choke" Where The Protagonist Has Deceived A Whole Bunch Of People. In "choke" It's All Of These People Who Think That They've Saved His Life, And Really Care About Him Because They've Embraced Him And They've Been His Saviors. In "fight Club" It's All Of These People Who Are Dying Of Various Diseases, And They Thought That Edward Norton Was Also Dying So They Allowed Him Really Strong Pent-up Emotions.

As If You Cut Open A Rag Doll With A Sill Name, And Found Inside:real Intestines, Real Lungs, A Beating Heart And Blood. A Lot Of Hot, Sticky Blood.

There's No Escaping Fate, It Just Keeps Going. Day And Night, The Future Just Keeps Coming At You.

The Moment The World Declares A Person To Be Immortal, At That Moment The Person Will Strive To Prove The World Wrong. In The Face Of Glowing Press Releases And Reviews The Most Heralded Women Starve Themselves Or Cut Themselves Or Poison Themselves. Or They Find A Man Who's Happy To Do That For Him.

Also Consider That Someday, When You’re Dead And Rotted, Kids With Their Baby Teeth Will Sit In Their Time-geography Class And Laugh About How Stupid You Were.

This Would Be...a Book That Would Be A Trapdoor Down Into Some Place Dark. A Place Only You Could Go, Alone, When You Opened The Cover. Because Only Books Have That Power.

You Have No Idea What It Is Like To Constantly Disappoint People. You See It The Moment You Meet Them. You See In Their Eyes That They Expected Something So Entirely Different, And Here They Are Meeting You.

If You Ask Me, Most People Have Children Just As Their Own Enthusiasm About Life Begins To Wane.

Nothing Shows You The Straight Line From Here To Death Like A List.

I'm Really Glad That I Spent My Twenties Messing Around And Having Disaster After Disaster - With People Who Were Doing Likewise - Because It's Really My Greatest Treasure Now.

Greatest Treasure

Find A Guy Who Calls You Beautiful Instead Of Hot, Who Calls You Back When You Hang Up On Him, Who Will Lie Under The Stars And Listen To Your Heartbeat, Or Will Stay Awake Just To Watch You Sleep...wait For The Boy Who Kisses Your Forehead, Who Wants To Show You Off To The World When You Are In Sweats, Who Holds Your Hand In Front Of His Friends, Who Thinks You're Just As Pretty Without Makeup On. One Who Is Constantly Reminding You Of How Much He Cares And How Lucky His Is To Have You....the One Who Turns To His Friends And Says, 'that's Her.'

I Learned All Those Jokes In Second Grade. Second Grade Is Really Where They Tell You Those Horrific Jokes, Racist Jokes And Misogynistic Jokes That You Have No Idea What They Mean, And You Just Memorize Them Because They Have A Very Strong Effect, They Make People Laugh In This Kind Of Nervous, Horrible Way, And It's Only Later That You Realize That You've Got A Head Full Of Crap.

We've Taken The World Apart But We Have No Idea What To Do With The Pieces.

It's Only After We've Lost Everything That We're Free To Do Anything.

Because Nothing Is As Good As You Can Imagine It. No One Is As Beautiful As She Is In Your Head. Nothing Is As Exciting As Your Fantasy.

We All Die. The Goal Isn't To Live Forever, The Goal Is To Create Something That Will.

If You're Male And You're Christian And Living In America, Your Father Is Your Model For God. And If You Never Know Your Father, If Your Father Bails Out Or Dies Or Is Never At Home, What Do You Believe About God?

Leonardo's Mona Lisa Is Just A Thousand Thousand Smears Of Paint. Michelangelo's David Is Just A Million Hits With A Hammer. We're All Of Us A Million Bits Put Together The Right Way.

The Career Of A Movie Star Consists Of Helping Everyone Else Forget Their Troubles. Using Charm And Beauty And Good Cheer To Make Life Look Easy.

It Only Takes One Mistake And Nothing Else You Ever Do Will Matter. No Matter How Hard You Work Or How Smart You Become, You'll Always Be Known For That One Poor Choice.

An Important Part Of Building A New Culture Was Allowing People To Complain About Their Past. At First, The More They Complained, The Worse The Past Would Seem. But By Venting, People Could Start To Resolve The Past. By Bitching And Bitching And Bitching, They Could Exhaust The Drama Of Their Own Horror Stories. Grow Bored. Only Then Could They Accept A New Story For Their Lives. Move Forward.

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.

Most Guys Will Fight To Know You. Some Guys Will Deny You're A Real Person, And Some Will Just Ignore You." The Zealot. The Atheist. The Agnostic.

What You Have To Consider Is The Possibility That God Doesn't Like You. Could Be, God Hates Us. This Is Not The Worst Thing That Could Happen.

At The Last Minute, I Couldn't Wear The Hitler Mustache Because Tiger Stripe Ate It; And Then I Didn't Want To Take My Kitty And Risk His Coughing Up Some Big Nazi Hairball On Someone's Front Stoop.

Generations Have Been Working In Jobs They Hate, Just So They Can Buy What They Don't Really Need.

I Think In A Way, You're Doomed, Once You Can Envision Something. You're Sort Of Doomed To Make It Happen. I've Found That The Moment I Can Envision Leaving A Relationship, That's Usually The Moment That The Relationship Starts To Fall Apart.

You Have A Class Of Young Strong Men And Women, And They Want To Give Their Lives To Something. Advertising Has These People Chasing Cars And Clothes They Don't Need. Generations Have Been Working In Jobs They Hate, Just So They Can Buy What They Don't Really Need. We Don't Have A Great War In Our Generation, Or A Great Depression, But We Do, We Have A Great War Of The Spirit. We Have A Great Revolution Against The Culture. The Great Depression Is Our Lives. We Have A Spiritual Depression.

You Know How Both Life And Porno Movies End. The Only Difference Is Life Starts With The Orgasm.

Sticks And Stones May Break Your Bones But Words Can Hurt Like Hell.

Her Mom And Dad Are Both Doctors And Want Her To Follow Her Dream, Not Turn Out The Way They Have, No Matter How Much It Costs Them.

Those Who Can Forget The Past Are Way Ahead Of The Rest Of Us.

Forget The Past

Welcome To Fight Club. The First Rule Of Fight Club Is: You Do Not Talk About Fight Club. The Second Rule Of Fight Club Is: You Do Not Talk About Fight Club! Third Rule Of Fight Club: If Someone Yells “stop!”, Goes Limp, Or Taps Out, The Fight Is Over. Fourth Rule: Only Two Guys To A Fight. Fifth Rule: One Fight At A Time, Fellas. Sixth Rule: The Fights Are Bare Knuckle. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Weapons. Seventh Rule: Fights Will Go On As Long As They Have To. And The Eighth And Final Rule: If This Is Your First Time At Fight Club, You Have To Fight.

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.

Did You Ever Think About Life As A Metaphor For Television?

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

Every Generation Wants To Be The Last. Every Generation Hates The Next Trend In Music They Can't Understand. We Hate To Give Up Those Reins Of Our Culture. To Find Our Own Music Playing In Elevators. The Ballad For Our Revolution, Turned Into Background Music For A Television Commercial. To Find Our Generation's Clothes And Hair Suddenly Retro.

Television Commercials

It's Just The Biggest Mistake I Could Think To Make

Biggest Mistake

I'm Never Going To Have To Work. None Of My Descendants Are Ever Going To Have To Work; This Is Going To Make Me So Much Money. It Was Such A Letdown When I Realized That Wasn't My Invention.

Katherine Kenton Remains Among The Generation Of Women Who Feel That The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery Is The Male Erection.

You're Doomed At Being You.

I Let Go. Lost In Oblivion. Dark And Silent And Complete. I Found Freedom. Losing All Hope Was Freedom.

You Don’t Care Where I Live Or How I Feel, Or What I Eat Or How I Feed My Kids Or How I Pay The Doctor If I Get Sick, And Yes I Am Stupid And Bored And Weak, But I Am Still Your Responsibility.

Stone Crumbles. Wood Rots. People, Well They Die. But Things As Fragile As A Thought, A Dream, A Legend, They Can Go On And On.

This Is The Greatest Momemt Of Your Life And Your Out Missing It

Proof That No Investment Is Yours Forever.

Carl Jung Called This His Shadow Work. He Said We Never See Others. Instead We See Only Aspects Of Ourselves That Fall Over Them. Shadows. Projections. Our Associations.

I Was Tired And Crazy And Rushed, And Every Time I Boarded A Plane, I Wanted The Plane To Crash. I Envied People Dying Of Cancer. I Hated My Life. I Was Tired And Bored With My Job And My Furniture, And I Couldn’t See Any Way To Change Things. Only End Them.

My Life Has Been About Living Like A Monk And Looking Like A Priest So That People Will Come Up To Me And Tell Me Their Most Appalling Stories. They Have To Make Their Confession To Somebody, And It Might As Well Be Me.

"getting Fired," Tyler Says, "is The Best Thing That Could Happen To Any Of Us. That Way, We’d Quit Treading Water And Do Something With Our Lives."

Yes, Terrible Things Happen, But Sometimes Those Terrible Things - They Save You.

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