Quotes by Chuck Palahniuk

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details. This is how we must look to God. As if everythings just fine.

The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Dont participate. Let Big Brother do the singing and dancing for you. Be a reporter. Be a good witness. A grateful member of theaudience.

Parents are like God because you wanna know theyre out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.

I see in the fight club the strongest and smartest men whove ever lived. I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we dont need. Were the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, weve been all raised by television to believe that one day wed all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we wont and were slowly learning that fact. and were very very pissed off.

If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didnt see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

Nobody wants to worship you if you have the same problems, the same bad breath and messy hair and hangnails, as a regular person. You have to be everything regular people aren’t. Where they fail, you have to go all the way. Be what people are too afraid to be. Become whom they admire. People shopping for a messiah want quality. Nobody is going to follow a loser. When it comes to choosing a savior, they wont settle for just a human being.

I am the child of a lunatic. Not a child of God.

It sounds as if youd like to be God.

If youre male, and youre Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And sometimes you find your father in your career.

Its so hard to forget pain, but its even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

The big reason why folks leave a small town, Rant used to say, is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason they stay put is so they can moon about getting out.Rant meant that no one is happy, anywhere.

Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy.

I dont want to die without any scars.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?

A girl calls and asks, Does it hurt very much to die?Well, sweetheart, I tell her, yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.

Reality means you live until you die...the real truth is nobody wants reality.

Its only in drugs or death well see anything new, and death is just too controlling.

Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains.