Quotessence
Home / Authors / Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleIfsWantWorldKnowsWayStoriesThinkingWritingFight Club NovelLooksDiesInvisible MonstersGivingLifeMomentsFight Club BookIdeasFeelsFirsts

Famous Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

“If you haven't already noticed, all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.In a way, that is the opposite of the American Dream: to get so rich you can rise above the rabble, all those people on the freeway or, worse, the bus.”

PeopleIfsWayPersonsBookDreamRichHavensLonelyOppositesBusAmerican DreamRise AboveFreewaysLonely Person
Book:Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
Create image

“The strength of film is its accessibility and immediacy. But the strength of books is that freedom to really depict anything you want because people are going to be reading it in private. So, I'm always trying to write with the immediacy and the constant motion of film but I'm also trying to write with the complete freedom of subject matter that books have.”

PeopleWantWritingTryingBookMatterFilmReadingSubjectsConstantAlways TryingSubject MatterAccessibilityImmediacyComplete Freedom
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“Public taste changes and the aesthetic of a culture changes over time, so the idea isn't to appeal to the aesthetic of the moment and what people will like right now; the idea is to somehow keep yourself in the public memory so that as taste evolves it will eventually come to embrace your thing. So, it's about writing to be remembered rather than writing to be liked.”

PeopleWritingIdeasMomentsCultureMemoriesTasteRight NowEmbraceAppealsEvolveRememberedAestheticCulture ChangeChanges Over Time
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“I take pens and I write on the inside of my arm. When I'm with people and somebody says a really fascinating anecdote, or fact, or phrase, I'll write it on the inside of my arm. At the end of the day, I'll take the very best things that are on my arm and I'll copy them into a notebook that I always carry and only when the weather is absolutely terrible will I really key the very best of that notebook into the computer. At that point, it's all sort of censored twice - only the best things go from the arm to the book and only the best things go from the book to the computer.”

PeopleWritingBookEndsFactsArmsKeysTerribleComputerWeatherBest ThingsPhrasesThe End Of The DayFascinatingCopiesPensNotebookAnecdotesCensored
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“So often with beginning writers, the story that they want to start with is the most important story of their life - my molestation, my this, my horrible drug addiction - they want to tell that most important story, and they don't have the skills to tell it yet, so it ends up becoming a comedy. A powerful story told poorly becomes funny, it just makes people laugh behind their hands.”

PeopleWantImportantEndsStoriesHandsPowerfulBehindsLaughingComedyBecomingDrugSkillsAddictionHorribleMaking People LaughDrug AddictionDrug AddictMolestationBeginning Writers
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“You're a product of our language, and how our laws are and how we believe our God wants us. Every bitty molecule about you has already been thought out by some million people before you. Anything you can do is boring and old and perfectly okay. You're safe because you're so trapped inside your culture. Anything you can conceive of is fine because you can conceive of it. You can't imagine any way to escape. There's no way you can get out.The world is your cradle and your trap.”

PeopleWorldWayWantBelieveLawCultureLanguageCan DoMillionsImagineProductsFineSafeOkayBoringTrappedTrapsWant UCradleMolecules
Book:Invisible Monsters Remix
Create image

“All major publishing houses have these big fat biographies sitting there, waiting for people to die. All you have to do is slap on the end and put in on the market. It's that kind of commoditization and completion of your life before you die - and this kind of imposition of a public idea of self that replaces the actual living self - that I find so frightening.”

PeopleKindIdeasEndsSelfBigsDiesHouseWaitingMajorsSittingFatsFrighteningPublishingBiographiesSlapCompletionImpositionPublishing House
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“A certain number of people have to live their lives outdoors between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., and a certain number of people can only leave their homes between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. So basically, public life has to be lived in these shifts, in order for everyone to fit on the streets because there's just no more room for any more infrastructure, any more highways. So it polarizes the community into day people and night people, and it becomes sort of a metaphor for racism and classism.”

PeopleHomeNightCertainOrderCommunityRoomsNumbersStreetsFitRacismMetaphorHighwaysInfrastructurePublic LifeClassism
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“My writing has to excite people and depict or include their experiences. That's part of my process - to go out and interact with people. It's very much like an archival process. I understand that the Brothers Grimm would go out and get people talking so they could document folk tales that weren't being documented any other way. I try to offer a little bit of myself - some experience from my life that evokes stories in other people.”

PeopleWayWritingTryingLittlesStoriesBitsProcessTalkingBrotherOffersLittle BitFolksTalesDocumentsEvokePeople TalkingGrimmBrothers Grimm
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“Intellectual culture seems to separate high art from low art. Low art is horror or pornography or anything that has a physical component to it and engages the reader on a visceral level and evokes a strong sympathetic reaction. High art is people driving in Volvos and talking a lot. I just don't want to keep those things separate. I think you can use visceral physical experiences to illustrate larger ideas, whether they're emotional or spiritual. I'm trying to not exclude high and low art or separate them.”

PeopleThinkingWantTryingArtIdeasUseSeemsSpiritualCultureStrongLevelsTalkingEmotionalReaderHorrorIntellectualLowsArt IsDrivingReactionsPornographyComponentsSympatheticEvokeVisceralHighs And LowsHigh ArtVolvo
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“People didn't know who I was or why I was there, so they started inventing stories about me. I was a registered sex offender and I'd just been released from prison and was being forced to do community-service work. I was a murderer, an arsonist - all these horrific things had been projected on me because no one knew what to make of this white guy who showed up and made toast at 5 o'clock every morning.”

PeopleKnowsMadeStoriesGuySexCommunityWhiteMorningPrisonClockEvery MorningMurdererInventingToastsHorrificOffendersCommunity ServiceWhite GuysSex OffendersArsonistsInventing Stories
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“I learned all those jokes in second grade. Second grade is really where they tell you those horrific jokes, racist jokes and misogynistic jokes that you have no idea what they mean, and you just memorize them because they have a very strong effect, they make people laugh in this kind of nervous, horrible way, and it's only later that you realize that you've got a head full of crap.”

PeopleWayKindMeanIdeasStrongRealizingLaughingEffectsJokesHorribleNervousNo IdeaGradesRacistVery StrongCrapMaking People LaughHorrificRacist Jokes
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“There is a social contract in "Fight Club" and in "Choke" where the protagonist has deceived a whole bunch of people. In "Choke" it's all of these people who think that they've saved his life, and really care about him because they've embraced him and they've been his saviors. In "Fight Club" it's all of these people who are dying of various diseases, and they thought that Edward Norton was also dying so they allowed him really strong pent-up emotions.”

PeopleThinkingWholeCareFightingStrongSocialEmotionDyingDiseaseVariousClubsSavedBunchContractsSaviorDeceivedChokeProtagonistsSocial ContractPeople Who Are Dying
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“I'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form.”

PeopleIfsStoriesUseFormArtistFightingNumbersFictionStepsSupportNovelWifeGroupsDyingHusbandClubsRecoveryServingSpouseDiariesNon FictionOutrageousChokeAccountingColonySubmarinesSupport Groups12 Step Recovery12 Step
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image