Background Image

...

When I First Started Writing, There Was No Way I'd Write A Sex Scene. That Just Seemed Impossible. That's Why In "fight Club" All The Sex Happens Off-screen. It's All Just A Noise On The Other Side Of The Wall Or The Ceiling. I Just Couldn't Bring To Write In A Scene Like That. So One Of The Challenges With "choke" Was I Wanted To Write Sex Scenes Until I Was Really Comfortable Just Writing Them In A Very Mechanical Way.

-Chuck Palahniuk

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When I First Started

Chuck Palahniuk

...

When I First Started Writing, There Was No Way I'd Write A Sex Scene. That Just Seemed Impossible. That's Why In "fight Club" All The Sex Happens Off-screen. It's All Just A Noise On The Other Side Of The Wall Or The Ceiling. I Just Couldn't Bring To Write In A Scene Like That. So One Of The Challenges With "choke" Was I Wanted To Write Sex Scenes Until I Was Really Comfortable Just Writing Them In A Very Mechanical Way.

Views: 75228

Topic

More From Chuck Palahniuk

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.

Everything Is A Self-portrait. A Diary. Your Whole Drug History’s In A Strand Of Your Hair. Your Fingernails. The Forensic Details. The Lining Of Your Stomach Is A Document. The Calluses On Your Hand Tell All Your Secrets. Your Teeth Give You Away. Your Accent. The Wrinkles Around Your Mouth And Eyes. Everything You Do Shows Your Hand.

We Kind Of Deny The Stages Of Life.

Crying Is Right At Hand In The Smothering Dark, Closed Inside Someone Else, When You See How Everything You Can Ever Accomplish Will End Up As Trash.

Marla Tells Me How In The Wild You Don't See Old Animals Because As Soon As They Age, Animals Die. If They Get Sick Or Slow Down, Something Stronger Kills Them. Animals Aren't Meant To Get Old. Marla Lies Down On Her Bed And Undoes The Tie On Her Bathrobe, And Says Our Culture Has Made Death Something Wrong. Old Animals Should Be An Unnatural Exception. Freaks.

Unless We Have That Moment Of Chaos, Followed By The Emotional Release Of Realization, Nothing Will Be Remembered.

Everyone Smiles With That Invisible Gun To Their Head.

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.

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 Realized That My Book Readings Were Boring Me. I Was Going To Go Up There And Read A Passage And Sleepwalk Through The Whole Event And I Needed To Make It More Interesting. I Wanted To Be Running And Jumping And Do Something So That The Event Would Be So Exciting. I Had To Trick Myself Into Having Fun Every Time.

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.

I Want My Whole Life Lined With A Topical Anesthetic.

Peter Used To Say That An Artist’s Job Is To Make Order Out Of Chaos. You Collect Details, Look For A Pattern, And Organize. You Make Sense Out Of Senseless Facts. You Puzzle Together Bits Of Everything. You Shuffle And Reorganize. Collage. Montage. Assemble.

Just Each Of Us Being Me, Me, Me First. The Murderer, The Victim, The Witness Each Of Us Thinks Our Role Is The Lead. Probably That Goes For Anybody In The World.

What Kind Of Dining Set Defines Me As A Person?

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.

Beginning With Santa Claus As A Cognitive Exercise, A Child Is Encouraged To Share The Same Idea Of Reality As His Peers. Even If That Reality Is Patently Invented And Ludicrous, Belief Is Encouraged With Gifts That Support And Promote The Common Cultural Lies. The Greatest Consensus In Modern Society Is Our Traffic Systems. The Way A Flood Of Strangers Can Interact, Sharing A Path, Almost All Of Them Traveling Without Incident. It Only Takes One Dissenting Driver To Create Anarchy.

Everything Is A Self-portrait. Everything Is A Diary.

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.

I Always Really Curious To See How People Interpret Things. I Know My Version, And I'm Kind Of Bored With My Version So I Want To See Their Version.

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

I Can Manage My Own Pain. I Can Drink. I Can Go To The Doctor And Get A Prescription. I Can Exercise. I Can Write A Story About It. I've Done It A Million Times! But I Don't Want To See The People I Love Tortured And Suffering.

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.

Most People Would Never Admit It, But They'd Been Bitching Since They Were Born. As Soon As Their Head Popped Out Into That Bright Delivery-room Light, Nothing Had Been Right. Nothing Had Been As Comfortable Or Felt So Good. Just The Effort It Took To Keep Your Stupid Physical Body Alive, Just Finding Food And Cooking It And Dishwashing, The Keeping Warm And Bathing And Sleeping, The Walking And Bowel Movements And Ingrown Hairs, It Was All Getting To Be Too Much Work.

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.

They Should Let Some People Into The Library By Prescription Only

As The Child Outlives The Father,so Must The Character Bury The Author.

Imagine Books And Music And Movies Being Filtered And Homogenized. Certified. Approved For Consumption. People Will Be Happy To Give Up Most Of Their Culture For The Assurance That The Tiny Bit That Comes Through Is Safe And Clean. White Noise.

Your Heart Is My Piñata.

That's How A Good Story Works. It Changes How You Feel. It Brings You To A Greater Appreciation, A Greater Joy, Of Your Own Existence.

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.

Cults Make People Sing So Hard For So Long - Because It Over-oxygenates The Blood And Sets Them Up To Faint.

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.

Ideas Come At Any Moment -- Except When You Demand Them. Most Ideas Come While I'm Physically Active, At The Gym, With Friends, Gardening, So I Always Carry Pen And Paper. My First Draft Is Always Written In Longhand. But Once The First Dozen Chapters, More Like Short Stories, Are Written, Then Momentum Builds Until I Can't Leave The Project Until It's Done.

Listen Up. Rant Would Tell People: ‘you’re A Different Human Being To Everybody You Meet.’ Sometimes Rant Said, ‘you Only Ever Is In The Eyes Of Other Folks.’ If You Were Going To Carve A Quote On His Grave, His Favorite Saying Was: ‘the Future You Have Tomorrow Won’t Be The Same Future You Had Yesterday.

The Future Is Just Wasted On Some People.

Invisible Monsters

In A City This Size, Every Year, Hundreds Of Husbands Walk Away. Kids Leave Home. Wives Escape. People Disappear.

There's Still A Thousand Places I Haven't Gone To Die.

Hey, Even The Mona Lisa Is Falling Apart.

To See How Boring You Really Are, Write A Book About Soap And Cults, And The Profits You Make Will Be Your Only Means Of Subsistence.

Get Married Before The Sex Gets Boring Or You'll Never Get Married.

To Repeat, The Way You Get To The Huge, Impossible Yes Is, You Start Collecting A Lot Of Easy, Small Yeses.

Ultimately, Everyone Is Acting Out Of What They Feel Is The Best Choice. In A Way, They're All Trying To Improve The World. And I Think That Those Basic Choices Make The World A Better Place.

We'll Be Remembered More For What We Destroy Than What We Create.

Invisible Monsters

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.

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.

It's All Mirror, Mirror On The Wall Because Beauty Is Power The Same Way Money Is Power The Same Way A Gun Is Power.

We All Have This Moment, When Your Folks First See You As Someone Not Growing Up To Be Them.

I Am Not Loved. I Am Not A Beautiful Soul. I Am Not A Good-natured, Giving Person. I Am Not Anybody's Savior.

These Stories Are Ghosts, Bringing People Back From The Dead. Just For A Moment. For A Visit. Every Story Is A Ghost.

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

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.

I Just Want One Person I Can Rescue And I Want One Person Who Needs Me. Who Can't Live Without Me. I Want To Be A Hero, But Not Just One Time.

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.

Our Culture Has Made Us All The Same. No One Is Truly White Or Black Or Rich, Anymore. We All Want The Same. Individually, We Are Nothing.

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

And It [fight Club Novel] Was Written So General That My Father Thought I Was Writing About His Father, And My Boss Thought I Was Writing About His Boss. People Really Put Themselves, You Know, In The Shoes Of The Narrator.

I Told Him To Buy Land, My Mum Says, They’re Not Making It Anymore.

I'm Always Identifying Some Fallacy In My Own Life. I'm Sort Of Making Fun Of Myself By Exploring And Unpacking Just Why I'm Sort Of Automatically Thrown To Be A Certain Way.

When Nobody Will Look At You, You Can Stare A Hole In Them. Picking Out All The Little Details You'd Never Stare Long Enough To Get If They'd Even Just Return Your Gaze, This, This Is Your Revenge.

I Thought Why Not Write A Kind Of Mystery, Murder, Thriller Book, But Use Romance Language Where The Language Plays Completely Against The Very Dark Subject Matter, That Very Strange Murderous Plot, But Use That Harlequin Romance Language.

The Truth Is, Immigrants Tend To Be More American Than People Born Here.

Today Is Just One Of Those Days The Sun Comes Out To Really Humiliate You.

One Of Those Days

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.

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 Best Fights Don't Occur Between Strangers. They Occur Between Friends Who Trust Each Other.

It's Creepy, But Here We Are, The Pilgrims, The Crackpots Of Our Time, Trying To Establish Our Own Alternate Reality. To Build A World Out Of Rocks And Chaos. What It's Going To Be, I Don't Know. Even After All That Rushing Around, Where We've Ended Up Is The Middle Of Nowhere In The Middle Of The Night. And Maybe Knowing Isn't The Point. Where We're Standing Right Now, In The Ruins In The Dark, What We Build Could Be Anything.

It's Funny How You Never Think About The Women You've Had. It's Always The Ones Who Get Away That You Can't Forget.

It's Funny How The Beauty Of Art Has So Much More To Do With The Frame Than The Artwork Itself.

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

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

It’s A Fun Playtime. Please, Don’t Kill It With Big Words.

Seek Midday Nourishment. Visit Memorial Acclaimed War Hero Colonel Sanders.

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

We All Have Some Proper Noun To Blame.

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

Going To Work Just Looked Crazy. Eating Another Meal, Ever, Made About As Much Sense As Planting Tulip Bulbs In The Shadow Of A Falling Atom Bomb.

The Most Boring Scenes Are The Scenes Where A Character Is Alone.

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

Tyler Gets Me A Job As A Waiter, After That Tyler's Pushing A Gun In My Mouth And Saying, The First Step To Eternal Life Is You Have To Die.

There Are Bodies Buried Everywhere You Just Have To Know Where To Look.

If You Worry About Disaster All The Time, That's What You're Going To Get.

We're All Of Us Haunted And Haunting.

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.

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

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

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

Find Good In What The World Says Is Evil.

Invisible Monsters

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

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.

I Admire Addicts. In A World Where Everybody Is Waiting For Some Blind, Random Disaster Or Some Sudden Disease, The Addict Has The Comfort Of Knowing What Will Most Likely Wait For Him Down The Road. He's Taken Some Control Over His Ultimate Fate, And His Addiction Keeps The Cause Of His Death From Being A Total Surprise.

They Assume She Was Once Gorgeously Beautiful. Because Now She Looks So—bad.

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.

Invisible Monsters

When You're Thinking About The Rest Of Your Life, You're Never Really Thinking More Than A Couple Years Down The Road.

The Lucky Ones Are Just Born Dead.

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

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.

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

This Is The Worst Problem With Living History Museums. They Always Leave The Best Parts Out. Like Typhus. And Opium. And Scarlet Letters. Shunning. Witch-burning.

Some Of The Best Ideas I Get Seem To Happen When I'm Doing Mindless Manual Labor Or Exercise. I'm Not Sure How That Happens, But It Leaves Me Free For Remarkable Ideas To Occur.

Somehow It Seems Wrong To Photograph A Blind Person. It’s Like Stealing Something Valuable They Don’t Even Know They Own.

Someone Bent On Suicide Won't Have Much Sense Of Humor Left.

This Is The Upside Of Already Being Eternally Damned

Where I'm Is One Of Those Stair Climbing Machines The Agent Has Installed. You Climb And Climb Forever And Never Get Off The Ground. You're Trapped In Your Hotel Room. It's The Mystical Sweat Love Lodge Experience Of Our Time, The Only Sort Of Indian Vision Quest We Can Schedule Into Our Daily Planner.our Stair Master To Heaven.

The Truth Is, Every Son Raised By A Single Mom Is Pretty Much Born Married. I Don't Know, But Until Your Mom Dies It Seems Like All The Other Women In Your Life Can Never Be More Than Just Your Mistress.

You Have Endless Ways You Can Commit Suicide Without Dying Dying.

Only After Disaster Can We Be Resurrected.

Fight Club Book

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

History Is Nothing Except Monsters Or Victims. Or Witnesses.

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

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

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.

The Religious School She Went To, Growing Up, Ms. Wright Said How All The Girls Had To Wear A Scarf Tied To Cover Their Ears At All Times. Based On The Biblical Idea That The Virgin Mary Became Pregnant When The Holy Spirit Whispered In Her Ear. The Idea That Ears Were Vaginas. That, Hearing Just One Wrong Idea, You Lost Your Innocence. One Detail Too Many And You’d Be Ruined. Overdosed On Information.

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.

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.

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

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

Art Never Comes From Happiness.

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

In Good Old Colonial Dunsboro, Masochism Is A Valuable Job Skill. It Is In Most Jobs.

It Only Takes One Mistake,' The Dan Banyan Guy Says, 'and Nothing Else You Ever Do Will Matter.' With His Empty Hand, He Takes One Of My Hands. His Fingers Feel Hot, Fever-hot, And Pounding With His Heartbeats. He Turns My Hand Palm-up Saying, 'no Matter How Hard You Work Or How Smart You Become, You'll Always Be Known For That One Poor Choice.' He Sets The Blue Pill On My Palm, Saying, 'do That One Wrong Thing- And You'll Be Dead For The Rest Of Your Life.

Every Woman Is Just A Different Kind Of Problem.

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.

Only After Disaster Can We Be Resurrected. It's Only After You've Lost Everything That You're Free To Do Anything. Nothing Is Static, Everything Is Evolving, Everything Is Falling Apart.

Lost Everything

Look Up At The Stars And You're Gone.

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

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.

We Don't Need Women. There Are Plenty Other Things In The World To Have Sex With, Just Go To A Sexaholics Meeting And Take Notes. There's Microwaved Watermelons. There's The Vibrating Handles Of Lawn Mowers Right At Crotch Level. There's Vacuum Cleaners And Beanbag Chairs. Internet Sites. All Those Old Chat Room Sex Hounds Pretending To Be Sixteen-year-old Girls. For Serious, Old Fbi Guys Makes The Sexiest Cyberbabes.

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.

He Was Assaulting The World By Assaulting Himself.

Pretty Much Always. We Need To Tell The Story Of Our Life To Someone.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

That Quest For Something Pretty. A Cheat. A Cliche. Flowers And Christmas Lights, It's What We're Programmed To Love.

You Kill Strangers Deliberately So You Don't Accidentally Kill The People You Love.

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

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

His Computer Password Is "password.

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

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

I Want To Find Something Else, Unknowable, Some Place That's Not On The Map. A Real Adventure.

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.

It’s Weird To Think The Place Where We’re Standing Will Only Be A Point In The Sky.

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.

No One Wants To Admit We're Addicted To Music. That's Just Not Possible. No One's Addicted To Music And Television And Radio. We Just Need More Of It, More Channels, A Larger Screen, More Volume. We Can't Bear To Be Without It, But No, Nobody's Addicted. We Could Turn It Off Anytime We Wanted. I Fit A Window Frame Into A Brick Wall. With A Little Brush, The Size For Fingernail Polish, I Glue It. The Window Is The Size Of A Fingernail. The Glue Smells Like Hair Spray. The Smell Tastes Like Oranges And Gasoline.

To A Certain Extent Everybody Has A Certain Sort Of Way Of Being A Persona That They Learn How To Be When They're Really Little. They Figure Out That If They're Really Funny, Or Really Pretty, Or If They Work Really, Really Hard Or Are Really Smart, Then That's What's Going To Get Them By. That Is What Is Going To Make People Like Them.

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

Now This Is The First Rule Of Fight Club: There Is Nothing A Blue Collar Nobody In Oregon With A Public School Education Can Imagine That A Million-billion People Haven't Already Done.

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

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

Her Voice Makes Me Think Of Her Mouth Makes Me Think Of Her Breath Makes Me Think Of Her Breasts.

The Answer Is There Is No Answer.

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.

Love Is Bullshit. Emotion Is Bullshit.

You Could Stab A Knife Right Through My Heart And You'd Be Too Late.

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.

We've All Been Raised On Television To Believe That One Day We'd All Be Millionaires, And Movie Gods, And Rock Stars. But We Won't. And We're Slowly Learning That Fact. And We're Very, Very Pissed Off.

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.

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

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.

The Most Boring Thing In The Entire World Is Nudity. The Second Most Boring Thing Is Honesty.

Could You Hold The Chainsaw A Bit Closer To Your Mouth, Please?

A Moment Is All You Can Expect From Perfection.

Public Taste Changes And The Aesthetic Of A Culture Changes Over Time, So The Idea Isn't To Appeal To The Aesthetic Of The Moment And What People Will Like Right Now; The Idea Is To Somehow Keep Yourself In The Public Memory So That As Taste Evolves It Will Eventually Come To Embrace Your Thing. So, It's About Writing To Be Remembered Rather Than Writing To Be Liked.

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

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.

There Is Nothing Special In The World. Nothing Magic. Just Physics.

I'm Giving You My Life To Prove To Myself I Can, I Really Can Love Somebody. Even When I'm Not Getting Paid, I Can Give Love And Happiness And Charm. You See, I Can Handle The Baby Food And The Not Talking And Being Homeless And Invisible, But I Have To Know That I Can Love Somebody. Completely And Totally, Permanently And Without Hope Of Reward, Just As An Act Of Will, I Will Love Somebody.

Those Who Remember The Past Tend To Get The Story Really Screwed Up.

He Was The Kind Of Boy Any Young Girl Should Date While She's Still Able To Recover.

My Theory Is That Church Used To Be That Place. Instead Of Being A Place Where You Went To Look Good, It Was A Place Where You Could Risk Going Every Week To Look Your Worst.

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.

There's An Old Saying: 'no Piece Of Writing Is Ever Finished, It's Just Abandoned.' But My Own Rule Is: No Piece Of Work Is Done Until You Want To Kill Everyone Involved In The Publishing Process, Especially Yourself.

I'm Always Trying To Reach A Transcendent Point, A Romantic Point, But Reach It In A Really Unconventional Way, A Really Profane Way. To Get To That Romantic, Touching, Heartbreaking Place, But Through A Lot Of Acts Of Profanity.

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

No Matter How Much You Think You Love Somebody, You'll Step Back When The Pool Of Their Blood Edges Up Too Close.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing Is Static. Even The Mona Lisa Is Falling Apart. Since Fight Club, I Can Wiggle Half The Teeth In My Jaw. Maybe Self-improvement Isn't The Answer. Maybe Self-destruction Is The Answer.

There Are Worse Things You Can Do To People You Love Than Kill Them.

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.

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.

Love Is Bullshit. Emotion Is Bullshit. I Am A Rock. A Jerk. I'm An Uncaring Asshole And Proud Of It.

Am I Sleeping? Have I Slept At All? This Is Insomnia.

You Can Make Mean Anything.

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.

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

You're Not Getting This Back You Know. Consider It An Asshole Tax.

People Are All Over The World Telling Their One Dramatic Story And How Their Life Has Turned Into Getting Over This One Event. Now Their Lives Are More About The Past Than Their Future.

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

With Insomnia, You're Never Really Awake; But You're Never Really Asleep.

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

Find Value In What We've Been Taught Is Worthless.

Nothing Feels As Awful As Pouring Your Heart Out To Some Talk Therapist, Then Realizing This So-called Professional Is Actually Vastly Stupid And You've Just Professed Your Most Secret Secrets To Some Goon Who's Wearing One Brown Sock And One Blue Sock.

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

Trending Author

Ahmed Ben Bella

Enrico Colantoni

Christopher Paolini

Category