Your life isn’t about doing one perfect ‘thing’ and then falling down dead. It’s more like going to church or writing a book. You do it over and over, always trying to be a little bit better. Then you die. – Chuck Palahniuk
My father worked for the railroad, and whenever a train crashed, we would go as a family and steal food from the boxcars. One year we stole a case of butterscotch pudding that was for export to Israel. It took us years to get through. – Chuck Palahniuk
Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion – painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless. – Chuck Palahniuk
My private history in terms of people in my life who are dead is very easy to discuss. I don’t feel those people can be threatened or intruded upon now. But I am enormously protective of the people who are currently in my life, my existing friends and family. That is where the curtain is drawn. – Chuck Palahniuk
To merely observe your culture without contributing to it seems very close to existing as a ghost. – Chuck Palahniuk
We’re so much more likely to feel sympathy for an animal than another person; thus, the best fiction uses animals to define truly humane behavior. – Chuck Palahniuk
That saying, about how you always kill the thing you love, well, it works both ways. – Chuck Palahniuk
People said that ‘Fight Club’ would be impossible to turn into a movie, but I think David Fincher loved that challenge. – Chuck Palahniuk
Verbs allow you to communicate a story in a much more converged or involuntary way for a reader. The verbs allow you to come in under the radar, below people’s defenses. – Chuck Palahniuk
The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I’m shocked by the deeply personal things I’ve put into books without realizing it. – Chuck Palahniuk
I never think I’m making fun of my culture. In fact I’m making fun of myself, because I catch myself doing some very stupid things. – Chuck Palahniuk
I get a lot of letters from women who insist that ‘Fight Club’ is not just a guy thing. They insist that women have the same rage and need the same outlet. – Chuck Palahniuk
I think that I am responsible for the death of thousands of things and for the misery of thousands of people, just through the things that I buy and how I live my life, and these are not things that ever deserved to die. – Chuck Palahniuk
The folks who read my books are so passionate about each one of them that the people making my movies are more afraid of my readership than they are of me. – Chuck Palahniuk
We’re making the same mistakes we made 1,000 years ago. So they must be the right ones. So relax. – Chuck Palahniuk
In a way, a lot of my humor comes from presenting things that are dramatic or shocking and then people not having socially appropriate responses, having people denying the drama by failing to react to it, and that’s a really classic form of humor. – Chuck Palahniuk
The best thing about getting a flu shot is that you never again need to wash your hands. That’s how I see it. – Chuck Palahniuk
Fiction is no longer the dominant storytelling device of our time. In the 19th century it worked great, and fiction was the king, but it’s not the king any more. – Chuck Palahniuk
With a book, you’re guaranteed the audience has a certain skill level and that the audience has to make an ongoing effort to consume this product and that the project is being consumed by just one person at a time. I really want to play to that strength because it’s one of the few advantages books still have. – Chuck Palahniuk
Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself. – Chuck Palahniuk
