Chuck Palahniuk
Written in stolen moments under truck chassis and on park benches to a soundtrack of The Downward Spiral and Pablo Honey, Fight Club came into existence. The adaptation of Fight Club was a flop at the box office, but achieved cult status on DVD. The film’s popularity drove sales of the novel. Chuck put out two novels in 1999, Survivor and Invisible Monsters. Choke, published in 2001, became Chuck’s first New York Times bestseller. Chuck’s work has always been infused with personal experience, and his next novel, Lullaby, was no exception. Chuck credits writing Lullaby with helping him cope with the tragic death of his father. Diary and the non-fiction guide to Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, were released in 2003. While on the road in support of Diary, Chuck began reading a short story entitled 'Guts,' which would eventually become part of the novel Haunted.
In the years that followed, he continued to write, publishing the bestselling Rant, Snuff, Pygmy, Tell-All, a 'remix' of Invisible Monsters, Damned, and most recently, Doomed.
Chuck also enjoys giving back to his fans, and teaching the art of storytelling has been an important part of that. In 2004, Chuck began submitting essays to ChuckPalahniuk.net on the craft of writing. These were 'How To' pieces, straight out of Chuck's personal bag of tricks, based on the tenants of minimalism he learned from Tom Spanbauer. Every month, a “Homework Assignment” would accompany the lesson, so Workshop members could apply what they had learned. (all 36 of these essays can currently be found on The Cult's sister-site, LitReactor.com).
Then, in 2009, Chuck increased his involvement by committing to read and review a selection of fan-written stories each month. The best stories are currently set to be published in Burnt Tongues, a forthcoming anthology, with an introduction written by Chuck himself.
His next novel, Beautiful You, is due out in October 2014.
“It's nice to see something more pathetic than I feel right now.”
“Ignorance was bliss.”
“Everybody's trying to make every minute of the present last forever. Preserve every second.”
“It sounds as if you'd like to be God.”
“I just want one person I can rescue and I want one person who needs me. Who can't live without me. I want to be a hero, but not just one time.”
“It's funny how the beauty of art has so much more to do with the frame than the artwork itself.”
“The lucky ones are just born dead.”
“If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love.”
“Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead.”
“We live and we die and anything else is just a delusion.”
“I am the child of a lunatic. Not a child of God.”
“Because I can't save anybody; not as a doctor, not as a son. And because I can't save anybody, I can't save myself.”
“There's no way you can get the past right. You can pretend. You can delude yourself, but you can't re-create what's over.”
“I am not loved. I am not a beautiful soul. I am not a good-natured, giving person. I am not anybody's savior.”
“The feeling is less like an ending than just another starting point.”
“It's okay to cry as long as you're faking it.”
“I'm in love. So kill me.”
“Don't do this. I love you. Don't shut me out.”
“This is fish number six hundred and forty-one in a lifetime of goldfish. My parents bought me the first one to teach me about loving and caring for another living breathing creature of God. Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.”
“No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away.”
“Trust me, the being-dead part is much easier than the dying part. If you can watch much television, then being dead will be a cinch. Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.”
“Kdy došlo k tomu, že budoucnost přestala být příslibem a stala se hrozbou?”
“Even if you tell yourself "Today I'm going to drink coffee the wrong way ... from a dirty boot." Even that would be right, because you chose to drink coffee from that boot.Because you can do nothing wrong. You are always right. Even when you say, "I'm such an idiot, I'm so wrong..." you're right. You're right about being wrong. You're right even when you're an idiot. No matter how stupid your idea, you're doomed to be right because it's yours.”
“We have pain and hate and love and joy and war in the world because we want them.”
“this is the upside of already being eternally damned”
“You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train?”
“Noi non siamo speciali.Non siamo nemmeno merda.Noi siamo.Noi siamo soltanto e quello che succede succede soltanto.”
“People die', she says. 'People tear down houses. But furniture, fine, beautiful furniture, it just goes on and on, surviving everything.' She says, 'Armoires are the cockroaches of our culture.”
“She's so thin she's either dying or rich.”
“All the demons of Hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. As each subsequent civilization became a dominant power, among its first acts was to depose and demonize whoever the previous culture had worshipped. The Jews attacked Belial, the god of the Babylonians. The Christians banished Pan and Loki anda Mars, the respective deities of the ancient Greeks and Celts and Romans. The Anglican British banned belief in the Australian aboriginal spirits known as the Mimi. Satan is depicted with cloven hooves because Pan had them, and he carries a pitchfork based on the trident carried by Neptune. As each deity was deposed, it was relegated to Hell. For gods so long accustomed to receiving tribute and loving attention, of course this status shift put them into a foul mood.”
“This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.”
“The sixth rule of Fight Club: No shirt, no shoes.”
“No matter what happens, it’s always now.”
“It’s a fun playtime. Please, don’t kill it with big words.”
“Ve eğer İsa uyku hapları yutup, bir banyonun zemininde tek başına ölseydi, cennete gider miydi?”
“A woman eats to feed her pussy." Meaning: Anything we do to excess is in compensation for not getting a minimum amount of sexual gratification.”
“What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.”
“Imagine a plague you catch through your ears.”
“(...) We're not here to witness anything. We're witch-hunters.”
“We drive west the rest of the night, away from where the sun will come up, trying to outrace it, trying not to see what it's going to show us when we get home.”
“Here are the shadows left behind by a thousand moments, a thousand moods, of needs traced here on the wall by men who are gone. Here is the record of their being here.”
“Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.”
“The most I can ever do is write things down. To remember them. The details. To honor them in some way.”
“Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.”
“Sex reincarnated that good, pure girl, but as something else.”
“Yeah, parents will always fuck you up.”
“It only takes one mistake and nothing else you ever do will matter. No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.”
“Parents, they'll screw you up every time.”
“All of these stars, the most powerful actors in film, they were all gone in an instant.”
“To hell with housework, our top priority has always been between our legs.”