Inspirational Quotes by Chuck Palahniuk — Words of Wisdom for Daily Success

“After long enough, everyone in the world will be you enemy.”

“By the time you're thirty, your worst enemy is yourself.”

“Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise.”

“The religious school she went to, growing up, Ms. Wright said how all the girls had to wear a scarf tied to cover their ears at all times. Based on the biblical idea that the Virgin Mary became pregnant when the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear. The idea that ears were vaginas. That, hearing just one wrong idea, you lost your innocence. One detail too many and you’d be ruined. Overdosed on information.”

“For official record, if become bankrupt old retail distribution centers-labeled supermega, so-enlarged foodstuff market- later reincarnate to become worship shrine. First sell food-stuff, next then same structure sell battered furnitures, next now born as gymnasium club, next broker flea markets, only at final end of life...sell religions.”

“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”

“No matter how much you love someone, you still want to have you own way.”

“Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.”

“The amazing miracle of death, when one second you're walking and talking, and the next second you're an object.”

“Someday you will die, and until you know that, you're useless to me.”

“The lucky ones are just born dead.”

“There's still a thousand places I haven't gone to die.”

“You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living.”

“The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you'll realize you only lived on paper. Your only adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room masturbating and making money.”

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

“It's only in drugs or death we'll see anything new, and death is just too controlling.”

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

“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?”

“I don't want to die without any scars.”

“Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life.”

“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 everything's just fine.”

“Because supposedly those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“It's exhausting, the energy it takes to unknow a truth.”

“Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead.”

“You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble.”

“The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.”

“Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine.”

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

“It sounds as if you'd like to be God.”

“Imagine there is no God. There is no Heaven or Hell. There is only your son and his son and his son, and the world you leave for them.”

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

“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 won't settle for just a human being.”

“Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't 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.”

“I see in the fight club the strongest and smartest men who've 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 don't need. We're 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, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact. and we're very very pissed off.”

“You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you’re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you’ll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you’ll be dead.”

“This is your life, and its ending one minute at a time.”

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

“I still love him so much I'll hide any amount of conjugated estrogen in his food. So much I'll do anything to destroy him.”

“If Marilyn Monroe was alive right now, what would she be doing?'”

“Could you hold the chainsaw a bit closer to your mouth, please?”

“Music is crucial. Beyond no way can I overstress this fact. Let's say you're southbound on the interstate, cruising alone in the middle lane, listening to AM radio. Up alongside comes a tractor trailer of logs or concrete pipe, a tie-down strap breaks, and the load dumps on top of your little sheetmetal ride. Crushed under a world of concrete, you're sandwiched like so much meat salad between layers of steel and glass. In that last, fast flutter of your eyelids, you looking down that long tunnel toward the bright God Light and your dead grandma walking up to hug you--do you want to be hearing another radio commercial for a mega, clearance, closeout, blow-out liquidation car-stereo sale?”

“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!”

“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. Don't participate.”

“We just had a near-life experience!”

“If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.”