“If you start in the pit of despair with these profane, awful things, even a glimmer of hope or awareness is going to occur that's much brighter coming from this dark, awful beginning.”
Hope
“Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.”
TimeAll Quotes by Chuck Palahniuk
“You hear the best stories from ordinary people. That sense of immediacy is more real to me than a lot of writerly, literary-type crafted stories. I want that immediacy when I read a novel.”
Best“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.”
Funny“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.”
Romantic“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
Happiness“I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. That's the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.”
Life“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
God“Reality means you live until you die. The real truth is nobody wants reality.”
Truth“Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home... it's your responsibility to love it, or change it.”
Change“The most boring scenes are the scenes where a character is alone.”
Alone“I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing.”
Good“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.”
Love“Minimalism seems closest to the sophisticated storytelling of movies. Movies have really educated contemporary audiences to be the most intelligent, sophisticated audiences in history. We don't any longer need to have the relationship between one scene and the next explained. We will figure it out ourselves.”
History“If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?”
Time“I have a lot of money.”
Money“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.”
Age“The world of American politics is more contentious than it has ever been in my lifetime.”
Politics“Maybe it's our sins that give God consolation when he finally has to give us cancer.”
God“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.”
Best“I think, in a way, I invented the term 'fight club' and that these things have always existed, but they never really had a label. Nobody had a language to apply to them. I created that language in two words and I've been paid a great deal of money for inventing two words and labeling something that has always been around.”
Great