Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

I don't want to die without any scars.

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.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.

You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.

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

When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.

The things you used to own, now they own you.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?

You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?" "Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.

You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

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

If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.

Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.

Ok. You fuck me, then snub me. You love me, you hate me. You show me a sensitive side, then you turn into a total asshole. Is this a pretty accurate description of our relationship.

Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit.

At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?

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.

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.

We'll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.

Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly -- all these make for great stories.

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.

You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice.

Most times, it's just a lot easier not to let the world know what's wrong.

Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against.

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.

I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

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

We'll never be as young as we are tonight.

Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.

The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.

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.

People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.

The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.

If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?

It's not love or anything, but I think I like you, too.

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.

Your heart is my piñata.

Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.

A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.

The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.

Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.

The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly.

If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible.

Find out what you're afraid of and go live there.

Reality means you live until you die...the real truth is nobody wants reality.

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart.

Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.

Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.

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.

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.

Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.

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.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

The idea that I can't share my problems with other people makes me not give a shit about their problems.

Just for the record, the weather today is bitter with occasional fits of jealous rage.

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.

What we don't understand we can make mean anything.

I feel my heart ache, but I've forgotten what that feeling means.

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.

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.

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.

Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.

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.

We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.

Give me lust, baby. Flash. Give me malice. Flash. Give me detached existentialist ennui. Flash. Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism. Flash.

I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching.

Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.

I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have.

Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life.

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.

The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing and so she won't commit to anything.

You're always haunted by the idea you're wasting your life.

Find good in what the world says is evil.

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

Make me into anything, but just love me.

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.

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

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.

There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.

I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.

Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.

Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashion makeovers that only leave me trapped being me. Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am. What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself.

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.

I see in the fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by 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.