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Rant Casey Used To Say, "no Matter What Happens, It's Always Now..." Talk About Cryptic. I Think What Rant Meant Was, We Live In The Present Moment Of Reality, And No Matter What's Come Before, No Matter How Much We Loved A Person Or A Dog, When It Attacks Us We'll React To That Moment Of Danger.

-Chuck Palahniuk

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Rant Casey Used To

Chuck Palahniuk

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Rant Casey Used To Say, "no Matter What Happens, It's Always Now..." Talk About Cryptic. I Think What Rant Meant Was, We Live In The Present Moment Of Reality, And No Matter What's Come Before, No Matter How Much We Loved A Person Or A Dog, When It Attacks Us We'll React To That Moment Of Danger.

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That Guy Behind Me On The Airplane? He's Been Kicking My Seat Because He Hates Me. He's Kicking My Seat Because He Hates Me And I'm Gonna Kill Him. When We Get Off This Plane, I'm Gonna Make Eye Contact. I'm Gonna Kill That Guy. And All Of That Is Just Stuff In My Head, But It's Good To Get Rid Of That Stuff.

Maybe It's Just A Daughter's Job To Piss Off Her Mother.

If You Love Something Set It Free, But Don't Be Surprised If It Comes Back With Herpes.

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.

The World Of American Politics Is More Contentious Than It Has Ever Been In My Lifetime.

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

Things You Love

The Old Rule About How A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy Forever, In My Experience, Even The Most Beauteous Thing Is Only A Joy For About Three Hours, Tops. After That, She'll Want To Tell You All About Her Childhood Traumas. Part Of Meeting These Jail Girls Is It's So Sweet To Look At Your Watch And Know She'll Be Behind Bars In Half An Hour.

I Like To Get People Moving And Jumping. I Think It's Good To Add More Emotion And Chaos.

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

Anybody's True Nature Is Bullshit. There Is No Human Soul. Emotion Is Bullshit. Love Is Bullshit.

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.

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.

Where Would Jesus Be If No One Had Written The Gospels?

Fight Club Novel

Portland In Particular Is A Cheap Enough Place To Live That You Can Still Develop Your Passion - Painting, Writing, Music. People Seem Less Status-conscious. Even Wealthy People Buy Second-hand Clothes And Look A Little Bit Homeless.

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

I Want Out Of The Labels. I Don't Want My Whole Life Crammed Into A Single Word. A Story. I Want To Find Something Else, Unknowable, Some Place To Be That's Not On The Map. A Real Adventure.' A Spinx. A Mystery. A Blank. Unknown. Undefined.

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.

This Is Our World Now, And Those Ancient People Are Dead.

Las Vegas Looks The Way You'd Imagine Heaven Must Look At Night.

The Answer Is There Is No Answer.

We're So Structured And Micromanaged, This Isn't A World Anymore, It's A Damn Cruise Ship.

"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."

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.

We Hear The Ambient Noise Of Children Singing. We Hear Lions And Tigers Roar. Hyenas Laugh. Some Jungle Bird Or Howler Monkey Declares Its Existence, Screeching A Maniac's Gibberish. Our Entire World, Always Doing Battle Against The Silence And Obscurity Of Death.

Where Every Day Doesn't Start With An Alarm Clock And End With The Television.

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

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

We Are A Nation Of Physical Animals Who Have Forgotten How Much We Enjoy Being That. We Are Cushioned By This Kind Of Make-believe, Unreal World And Have No Idea What We Can Survive Because We Are Never Challenged Or Tested.

The Joke Is, We All Have The Same Punchline.

Help Me Give Up My Addiction To Hope.

At Some Point, Your Memories, Your Stories, Your Adventures, Will Be The Only Things You'll Have Left.

When Deep Space Exploration Ramps Up, It'll Be The Corporations That Name Everything, The Ibm Stellar Sphere, The Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.

We Have Pain And Hate And Love And Joy And War In The World Because We Want Them.

Emotionally, In Our Minds, We Get So Filled With Resentments Where We've Got A Story About Absolutely Everything.

There's No Way You Can Get The Past Right. You Can Pretend. You Can Delude Yourself, But You Can't Re-create What's Over.

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.

If You Don't Know What You Want, You End Up With A Lot You Don't.

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.

Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, I'll Be Anybody You Want Me To Be. Use Me. Change Me. I Can Be Thin With Big Breasts And Big Hair. Take Me Apart. Make Me Into Anything, But Just Love Me.

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.

We've Spent So Much Time Judging What Other People Created That We've Created Very, Very Little Of Our Own.

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.

You Gain Power By Pretending To Be Weak. By Contrast, You Make People Feel Strong. You Save People By Letting Them Save You.

Because After You've Crossed Some Lines, You Just Keep Crossing Them. And There's No Escaping From Constant Escape. Distracting Ourselves. Avoiding Confrontation. Getting Past The Moment. Jacking Off. Television. Denial.

Without Pain, Without Sacrifice We Would Have Nothing. Like The First Monkey Shot Into Space.

It's Obsequious Little Nicety-nice Girls Like Me Who Allow Assholes To Run The World: Miss Harlot O'harlots, Billionaire Phony Tree Huggers, Hypocrite Drug-snorting, Weed-puffing Peace Activists Who Fund The Mass-murdering Drug Cartels And Perpetuate Crushing Poverty In Dirt-poor Banana Republics. It's My Petty Fear Of Personal Rejection That Allows So Many True Evils To Exist. My Cowardice Enables Atrocities.

You Cannot Be The Person They Know And The Great, Glorious Person You Want To Become. Not At The Same Time.

The Only Thing I Shy Away From Is Non-consensual Violence. I Can't Write A Story Where Someone Is A Simple Victim Because It's Boring.

Writing Is Like Sex, If It's Difficult You're Not Doing It Right.

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.

Yeah. Well. Whatever. You Can't Teach God Anything.

Fight Club Book

Our Generation Has Had No Great Depression, No Great War. Our War Is Spiritual. Our Depression Is Our Lives.

In The World I See You Are Stalking Elk Through The Damp Canyon Forests Around The Ruins Of Rock Feller Center. You'll Wear Leather Clothes That Will Last You The Rest Of Your Life. You'll Climb The Wrist-thick Kudzu Vines That Wrap The Sears Towers. And When You Look Down, You'll See Tiny Figures Pounding Corn, Laying Stripes Of Venison On The Empty Car Pool Lane Of Some Abandoned Superhighways.

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

There's Always The Chance You Could Die Right In The Middle Of Your Life Story.

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

I Suppose It’s Comfort, Perhaps A Sense Of Self-control, Doing Worse Things To Yourself Than The World Will Ever Dare Inflict.

A Couple Drinks. A Couple Aspirin. Repeat.

You Have To Keep Recycling Yourself.

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.

I Have To Have Everything In My Life Completely Fixed And Perfect And Cleaned Up And I Have To Be Complete With Everyone In My Life And I Have Seven Days In Which To Do That. So I Might Make It To Day Three Or Four, But I've Never Made It All The Way To Day Seven.

Just For The Record, The Weather Today Is Increasing Turmoil With A Possible Physical And Emotional Breakdown.

Some People Are Just Born Human, The Rest Of Us, We Take A Lifetime To Get There.

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

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.

Art Never Comes From Happiness.

Beginning With Santa In Infancy, And Ending With The Tooth Fairy As The Child Acquires Adult Teeth. Or, Plainly Put, Beginning With All The Possibility Of Childhood, And Ending With An Absolute Trust In The National Currency.

I'm Not Really Into Comfort Books. There Are Too Many Of Those As It Is. Just Sort Of Narcotic Books, Like My Grandmother Used To Read. They Have Value Like Paxil Has Value, But There's Plenty Of Them In The World Already. There's A Shortage Of Confronting, Stimulating, Exciting Books.

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

After You Find Out All The Things That Can Go Wrong, Your Life Becomes Less About Living And More About Waiting.

According To Plato, We Don't Learn Anything. Our Soul Has Lived So Many Lives That We Know Everything. Teachers And Education Can Only Remind Us Of What We Already Know.

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.

In A World Where Vows Are Worthless.where Making A Pledge Means Nothing. Where Promises Are Made To Be Broken, It Would Be Nice To See Words Come Back Into Power.

Besides, Hysteria Is Only Possible With An Audience.

You Ever Been Trapped In A World Where You're Everyone's Worst Nightmare?

Worst Nightmares

Because Nothing Is As Perfect As You Can Imagine It.

You Can Make Mean Anything.

All The Effort In The World Won't Matter If You're Not Inspired.

Inspirational Life

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

I'm In Love. So Kill Me.

The Future Is Just Wasted On Some People.

Invisible Monsters

You Can't Base Your Life On The Past Or The Present. You Have To Tell Me About Your Future.

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

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.

Imagine How You’d Feel If Your Whole Life Turned Into A Job You Couldn’t Stand.

To Preserve Yourself As The Center Of The World, To Stay Your Own Best Authority On Everything, Your Own Expert On All Topics, Infallible, Omniscient. Always, Every Time Of The Month, Forever: Use Birth Control.

Everybody's Still Miserable In The Same Way They've Always Been Miserable, And More And More Of My Friends - Especially My Male Friends - Find Themselves Taking Anti-anxiety, Psychotropic Drugs. It Seems Like Everybody I Know Is Wondering If They're Really Who They Are, Or Once The Prescription Runs Out, Will They Become Someone Different?

In The Big Factory Of Perfecting Human Souls, The Earth Was Kind Of Tumbler. The Sale As The Kind People Use To Polish Rocks. All Souls Come Here To Rub The Sharp Edges Off Each Other. This Isn't Suffering. It's Erosion.

This Deluded Little Rube Who Really Thought The Future Would Be Any Better. If You Just Worked Hard Enough. If You Just Learned Enough. Ran Fast Enough. Everything Would Turn Out Right, And Your Life Would Amount To Something.

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.'

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

Just For The Record, The Weather Today Is Calm And Sunny, But The Air Is Full Of Bullshit.

Deliver Me From Swedish Furniture. Deliver Me From Clever Art. And The Phone Rang And Tyler Answered. "if You Don't Know What You Want," The Doorman Said, "you End Up With A Lot You Don't." May I Never Be Complete. May I Never Be Content. May I Never Be Perfect. Deliver Me, Tyler, From Being Perfect And Complete.

We Can Spend Our Lives Letting The World Tell Us Who We Are. Sane Or Insane. Saints Or Sex Addicts. Heroes Or Victims. Letting History Tell Us How Good Or Bad We Are. Letting Our Past Decide Our Future. Or We Can Decide For Ourselves. And Maybe It's Our Job To Invent Something Better.

Maybe We Should Always Assume The Worst.

For The Most Part My Friends Can Always Be More Entertaining Than The Tube Ever Can Be.

Make Me Into Anything, But Just Love Me.

Invisible Monsters

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.

Everything Is Still Falling Apart.

Find Joy In Everything You Choose To Do. Every Job, Relationship, Home... It's Your Responsibility To Love It, Or Change It.

Because Everything Up To Now Is A Story And Everything After Now Is A Story.

The Problem With Every Story Is You Tell It After The Fact.

It Is A Hundred-year-old Witch Book, Bound In Human Skin And Probably Written In Ancient Cum...you Lick It!

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

So Often With Beginning Writers, The Story That They Want To Start With Is The Most Important Story Of Their Life - My Molestation, My This, My Horrible Drug Addiction - They Want To Tell That Most Important Story, And They Don't Have The Skills To Tell It Yet, So It Ends Up Becoming A Comedy. A Powerful Story Told Poorly Becomes Funny, It Just Makes People Laugh Behind Their Hands.

I Write Compulsively. I've Got So Many Ideas, And I Love To Do It So Much, I Can't Not Do It. I Write The Way Some People Do Drugs.

Picture Anybody Growing Up So Stupid He Didn't Know That Hope Is Just Another Phase You'll Grow Out Of.

I Need To Rebel Against Myself. It's The Opposite Of Following Your Bliss. I Need To Do What I Most Fear.

Believe In Yourself

No, It's Not Fair, But What Makes Earth Feel Like Hell Is Our Expectation That It Should Feel Like Heaven. Earth Is Earth. Dead Is Dead. You'll Find Out For Yourself Soon Enough. It Won't Help The Situation For You To Get All Upset.

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

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

Suicide Is Very Contagious.

Reality Means You Live Until You Die. The Real Truth Is Nobody Wants Reality.

The Bad News Is We Don't Have Any Control. The Good News Is We Can't Make Any Mistakes.

Find Out What You're Afraid Of And Go Live There.

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

It's So Quiet This High Up, The Feeling You Get Is That You're One Of Those Space Monkeys. You Do The Little Job You're Trained To Do. Pull A Lever. Push A Button. You Don't Understand Any Of It, And Then You Just Die.

Since Change Is Constant, You Wonder If People Crave Death Because It's The Only Way They Can Get Anything Really Finished.

No Matter How Much You Love Someone, You Still Want To Have You Own Way.

We Went Sailing One Time, And He Wore A Speedo, And Any Smart Woman Should Know That Means Bisexual At Least.

Today Is The Sort Of Day Where The Sun Only Comes Up To Humiliate You.

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's Not Living Alone If You Keep A Rifle Under The Bed.

That's What I Love About Fire, How It Would Kill Me As Quick As Anybody Else. How It Can't Know I'm Its Mother. It's So Beautiful And Powerful And Beyond Feeling Anything For Anybody, That's What I Love About Fire.

Taste Is Such A Changing Thing. Every Age Our Tastes Change. But The Things That Really Last Aren't Necessarily The Best Or The Worst Or The Most Loved Things, But They're The Things That Make The Biggest Impression.

So If Reality Is All A Spell, And You Don't Really Want What You Think You Want... If You Have No Free Will. You Don't Really Know What You Know. You Don't Really Love Who You Only Think You Love. What Do You Have Left To Live For?

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

I Don't Want To Die Without Any Scars.

We're Consumers. We Are By-products Of A Lifestyle Obsession. Murder, Crime, Poverty, These Things Don't Concern Me. What Concerns Me Are Celebrity Magazines, Television With 500 Channels, Some Guy's Name On My Underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra...

You Know, The Condom Is The Glass Slipper Of Our Generation. You Slip It On When You Meet A Stranger. You Dance All Night, Then You Throw It Away.

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.

Regret, Daisy Knew, Was The Only Confirmation Of A Well-lived Life. If You Didn't Occasionally Go Too Far, You Weren't Going Anywhere.

Some People Still Think Knowledge Is Power.

Knowledge Is Power

Get Through The Moment. Avoid Confrontation. Run Away. That's Pretty Much How We Get Through Our Own Lives, Watching Television. Smoking Crap. Self-medicating. Redirecting Our Own Attention. Jacking Off. Denial.

We All Want To Explain Ourselves. Nobody Wants To Be Forgotten.

I Don't Know The Difference Between What I Want And What I'm Trained To Want.

With Every Lecture, You’re Forced To Look Again At Every Choice You’ve Made Over The Lesson-by-lesson Chain Of Your Entire Life. And After All These Years, You See How Little You Have To Work With, How Limited Your Life And Education Have Been. How Scant Was Your Courage And Curiosity. Not To Mention Your Expectations.

Rant Said That View Of Time Was Set Up So Folks Won't Live Forever. It's The Planned Obsolescence We've All Agreed To...'nothing Says You Have To Swallow This,' Rant Told Me. 'you Can Always Just Die.

My Inventory Of People Who Can Save Me Is Down To Just Me.

My Whole Life Is About Forgetting. It's My Most Valuable Job Skill.

You Can Only Hold A Smile For So Long, After That It's Just Teeth.

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.

You Become Smart When You Don't Need To Quote Someone Anymore." I Am Still Stupid: I Quoted Chuck Palahiniuk

I Will Never Write A Sequel To Anything That I Will Ever Write.

I Always Thought I'd Write When I Retired - When I Turned 65. But By The Time I Was 33, To Tell You The Truth, I Was A Little Bored With Drugs And Sex, And I Thought I'd Do The Writing Thing.

It's Pathetic How We Can't Live With The Things We Can't Understand. How We Need Everything Labeled And Explained And Deconstructed.

Skin, Bones, Blood And Organs Transplant From Person To Person. Even What’s Inside You Already, The Colonies Of Microbes And Bugs That Eat Your Food For You, Without Them You’d Die. Nothing Of You Is All-the-way Yours. All Of You Is Inherited. Whatever You’re Thinking, A Million Other Folks Are Thinking. Whatever You Do, They’re Doing, And None Of You Is Responsible. All Of You Is A Cooperative Effort.

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.

People Have To Really Suffer Before They Can Risk Doing What They Love.

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.

Does It Hurt Very Much To Die? Well, Sweetheart, Yes, But It Hurts A Lot More To Keep Living.

No Matter What Else You Came Up Against, If You Could Smile And Laugh While A Monkey Did You With Chestnuts In A Dank Concrete Basement While Somebody Took Pictures, Well, Any Other Situation Would Be A Piece Of Cake

Tyler And Me At The Edge Of The Roof, The Gun In My Mouth, I'm Wondering How Clean This Gun Is.

The More Things You Own, The More They Own You.

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

His Saliva Tasted Like The Wet Dicks Of Ten Thousand Lonely Truck Drivers.

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.

This Is Your Life And Its Ending One Moment At A Time.

I Am An Invisible Monster, And I Am Incapable Of Loving Anybody. You Don't Know Which Is Worse.

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.

How Much Can You Know About Yourself If You've Never Been In A Fight?

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.

Maybe Self-improvement Isn't The Answer, Maybe Self-destruction Is The Answer.

Why Should I Believe Any Of This?' It Happens That Fast. I Say, Because I Think I Like You. Marla Says, 'not Love?' This Is A Cheesy Enough Moment, I Say. Don't Push It.

What Would Tyler Durden Do?

Believe In Me And Die Forever.

Or Maybe...just Maybe This Whole Process Is Our Training Wheels Towards Something Bigger. If We Can Reflect And Know Our Lives, We Might Stay Awake And Shape Our Futures.

The First Time We Meet Another Person An Insidious Little Voice In Our Heads Says, "i Might Wear Eyeglasses Or Be Chunky Around The Hips Or A Girl, But At Least I'm Not Gay Or Black Or A Jew." Meaning: I May Be Me- But At Least I Have The Good Sense Not To Be You.

Do You Remember When You Were 10 Or 11 Years Old And You Really Thought Your Folks Were The Best? They Were Completely Omniscient And You Took Their Word For Everything. And Then You Got Older And You Went Through This Hideous Age When Suddenly They Were The Devil, They Were Bullies, And They Didn't Know Anything.

Trust Me, The Being-dead Part Is Much Easier Than The Dying Part. If You Can Watch Much Television, Then Being Dead Will Be A Cinch. Actually, Watching Television And Surfing The Internet Are Really Excellent Practice For Being Dead.

Kids Grow Up Connected To Nothing These Days, Plugged In And Living Lives Boosted To Them From Other People.

Idiot People Like Angel Delaporte Who Look For A Supernatural Reason For Ordinary Events, Those People Drive Misty Nuts.

Just Keep Asking Yourself: What Would Jesus Not Do?

Most Of The Laugh Tracks On Television Were Recorded In The Early 1950’s. These Days, Most Of The People You Hear Laughing Are Dead.

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.

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

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.

The Difference Between How You Look And How You See Yourself Is Enough To Kill Most People. And Maybe The Reason Vampires Don’t Die Is Because They Can Never See Themselves In Photographs Or Mirrors.

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?

Abortion Occurs So Frequently In My Stories. Abortion Sort Of Synthesizes Both Sex And Death. To Have Sex And Death Placed As Close To One Another As Possible Is Always A Goal Of Mine.

I Might Be A Touch Of A Sadist And A Little Bit Jejune... But At Least I'm Not A Victim, Not Any Longer. I Hope. I Hope, Therefore I Am.

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.

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

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

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

There's A Terrible Dark Joy When The Only Person Who Knows All Your Secrets Is Finally Dead.

We're All Going Overnight Express Delivery Straight To Hell.

How You're Still Always Trapped. How Your Head Is The Cave, Your Eyes The Cave Mouth. How You Live Inside Your Head And Only See What You Want. How You Only Watch The Shadows And Make Up Your Own Meaning.

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.

Proof That No Investment Is Yours Forever.

You Gain Power By Pretending To Be Weak.

We Come From A Generation Of People Who Need Their Tv Or Stereo Playing All The Time. These People So Scared Of Silence. These Soundaholics, These Quietophobics.

Why Do I Do Anything?' She Says. 'i'm Educated Enough To Talk Myself Out Of Any Plan. To Deconstruct Any Fantasy. Explain Away Any Goal. I'm So Smart I Can Negate Any Dream.

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

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.

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

My Books Are More About People Experimenting With Different Identities And Social Models In A Short-term Way Before They Can Break Through To Something Authentic.

I Used Rebellion As A Way To Hide Out. We Use Criticism As A Fake Participation.

And The Seventh Rule Is If This Is Your First Night At Fight Club, You Have To Fight.

If It Comes Down To A Choice Between Being Unloved And Being Vulnerable And Sensitive And Emotional, Then You Can Just Keep Your Love.

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Michel Houellebecq

Milton Friedman

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