Quotes from Chuck Klosterman

Sometimes I think children are the worst people alive. And even if they're not—even if some smiling toddler is as pure as Evian—it's only a matter of time.

No woman will ever satisfy me. I know that now, and I would never try to deny it. But this is actually okay, because I will never satisfy a woman, either. Should I be writing such thoughts? Perhaps not. Perhaps it's a bad idea. I can definitely foresee a scenario where that first paragraph could come back to haunt me, especially if I somehow became marginally famous.

It doesn't matter what you can do if you don't know why you're doing it.

I remember saying things, but I have no idea what was said. It was generally a friendly conversation." —Associated Press reporter Jack Sullivan, attempting to recount a 3 A.M. exchange we had at a dinner party and inadvertently describing the past ten years of my life.

If you play I Don't Want To Know by Fleetwood Mac loud enough -- you can hear Lindsey Buckingham's fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. ...And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song.

It has always been my belief that people are remembered for the sum of their accomplishments but defined by their singular failure.

In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.

If you stare long enough at anything, you will start to find similarities. The word "coincidence" exists in order to stop people from seeing meaning where none exists.

We all eventually become whatever we pretend to hate.

This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.

The deeper reality is that I'm not sure if what I do is real. I usually believe that I'm certain about how I feel, but that seems naive. How do we know how we feel?…There is almost certainly a constructed schism between (a) how I feel, and (b) how I think I feel. There's probably a third level, too—how I want to think I feel.

The soul is a circle

and it occurred to me that people who don't talk about themselves are limiting their own potential. They think they're guarding themselves for some sort of abstract dange, but they're actually allowing other people to decide who they are and what they're like.

Observing someone without context amplifies the experience. The more we know, the less we are able to feel.

Necessity used to be the mother of invention, but then we ran out of things that were necessary. The postmodern mother of invention is desire; we don't really "need" anything new, so we only create what we want.

Mostly, we argued about who which of us was better at arguing, and particularly about who had won the previous argument.

It's possible this whole Why do Latinos love Morrisey? question will haunt us forever. Fortunately, Canadian academics are on the case.

Do you understand? Do you see the forest through the trees? Do you not see what I am no longer not saying to you? If so—congratulations! Prepare to have sex constantly.

Saying you like Piano Man doesn't mean you like Billy Joel; it means you're willing to go to a piano bar if there's nothing else to do

My mind and gut are never simpatico: Every time I think somebody likes me, she doesn't; every time I think somebody doesn't like me, she does. This has never changed and I'm certain it never will.

We are losing the ability to understand anything that's even vaguely complex.

The message of The Winner Takes It All is straightforward: It argues that the concept of relationships ending on mutual terms is an emotional fallacy. One person is inevitably okay and the other is inevitably devastated.

As of right now, I am in love with her, and that love is the biggest problem in my life.

This made her remember why people take up walking: It is because they no longer have anywhere to go.