Quotes from Chuck Palahniuk

How everything you ever love will reject you or die. Everything you ever create will be thrown away. Everything you're proud of will end up as trash. I am Ozymandias, king of kings.

When you understand, Brandy says, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan, Brandy says, then we'll figure out who you're going to be.

Honey, times like this, it helps to think of yourself as a sofa or a newspaper, something made by a lot of other people but not made to last forever.

How physical beauty turns out to be chemistry and geometry and anatomy. Art is really science. Discovering why people like something is so you can replicate it. Copy it. It's a paradox, creating a real smile. Rehearsing again and again a spontaneous moment of horror. All the sweat and boring effort that goes into creating what looks easy and instant.

Or, I could just sit in the bushes and pump the hand pump until the plumbing was superpressurized to 110 psi. This way, when someone goes to flush a toilet, the toilet tank will explode. At 150 psi, if someone turns on the shower, the water pressure will blow off the shower head, strip the threads, blam, the shower head turns into a mortar shell. Tyler only says this to make me feel better. The truth is I like my boss. Besides, I'm enlightened now. You know, only Buddha-style behavior.

We love drama. We love conflict. We need a devil or we'll create one. None of that is bad. It's just the way human beings operate.

That's the biggest purpose of religious gathering: permission to look terrible in public. We used to go to church to confess our worst behaviour, to be heard and forgiven, then to be redeemed and accepted back into our community Chuck Palahniuk in interview with TMO

If you love something... Set it free. Just don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes

A lot of young people try to impress the world and buy too many things, the doorman said.

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

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.

Ignore how it feels when the only real talent you have is for hidding the truth. You have a God-given knack for commiting a terrible sin. It's your calling. You have a natural gift for denial. A blessing.

It's not that I'm some detached lab animal just conditioned to ignore violence, but my first instinct is maybe it's not too late to dab club soda on the bloodstain.

You just don't know what I've been through this past year.

Give me attention. Flash. Give me adoration. Flash. Give me a break. Flash

When both of you are beautiful, neither of you is beautiful. Together, as a couple, you're less than the sum of your parts.

What you don't learn in art theory is how too big a compliment can hurt more than a slap to the face.

Something foreign is always living itself through you. Your whole life is the vehicle for something to come to earth An evil spirit. A theory. A marketing campaign. A political strategy. A religious doctrine.

Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.

It's okay if there isn't a God anymore, but I still want to respect something. I don't want to be the center of my own universe

At some point, Wax mentioned how appalling it seemed that those brilliant minds who could invent miracle medicines and nuclear fission and dazzling computer special effects, they had such a complete lack of imagination when it came to spending their money: granite countertops and luxury cars. Talking about that stuff, Wax driving, the madder he got, you could watch the speedo creep up past eighty, ninety, a hundred.

I want to fuck you so bad I can taste it

You study any pretty democracy, from the ancient Greeks forward, and you'll see that the only way each system functions is with a working class of slaves. Peons to haul the garbage so the upper crust can campaign and vote.

This is when I'd cry because right now, your life comes down to nothing, and not even nothing, oblivion.