Quotes by Chuck Palahniuk

With a book, youre 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 its one of the few advantages books still have.

If nothing else, theres comfort in recognising that no matter how much we fail and sin, death will limit our suffering.

What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? They seem like greater steps toward faith and imagination, each with a payoff. Like cognitive training exercises.

If you knew that your life was merely a phase or short, short segment of your entire existence, how would you live? Knowing nothing real was at risk, what would you do? Youd live a gigantic, bold, fun, dazzling life. You know you would. Thats what the ghosts want us to do - all the exciting things they no longer can.

Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet.

When working, my diet degrades to pizza three times a day, because I dont want to distract myself from anything.

I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. Thats the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.

My favorite books to give or get are short story collections. And always paperbacks because they are easy to carry as you travel.

Were so much more likely to feel sympathy for an animal than another person; thus, the best fiction uses animals to define truly humane behavior.

Of the big horror movies of the 70s, you have The Omen, The Sentinel, Rosemarys Baby, The Stepford Wives, Burnt Offerings - these are all romantic fatalist movies where theres a sort of glimmer of hope... but darkness wins.

My characters tend to be more dynamic because theyre reaching that point in their lives where their old way of being is breaking down. Theyre conflicted by the idea that they dont know whats next. You could call it Kierkegaards leap of faith, when you get tired of sort of reinventing yourself on a very superficial level.

The best fights dont occur between strangers. They occur between friends who trust each other.

I know that Im going to die and that youre going to die. I cant do anything about that. But I can explore it through a metaphor and make a kind of funny, dark story about it, and in doing so, really exhaust and research as many aspects of it as I can imagine. And in a way, that does give me some closure.

Its funny how you never think about the women youve had. Its always the ones who get away that you cant forget.

A big reason why I started writing is I felt that fiction had stopped evolving. All other entertainments were getting better, constantly, as technology allowed. Movies. Video games. Music.

Im 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.

I think in a way, youre doomed, once you can envision something. Youre sort of doomed to make it happen. Ive found that the moment I can envision leaving a relationship, thats usually the moment that the relationship starts to fall apart.

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 dont any longer need to have the relationship between one scene and the next explained. We will figure it out ourselves.

Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but thats usually how you end up crying?

When I first started writing, it was me alone with a computer in my apartment. I hated the time away from other people, and my writing sucked. Now I have a laptop; I can do the most tedious part of my job in a public place.