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.
“Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.”
“Let me be the ring leader in your guilt gang-bang. ”
“I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables.”
“So if you think this is going to save you...If you think anything is going to save you...Please consider this your final warning.”
“Sex pretty much cures everything.”
“When you're thinking about the rest of your life, you're never really thinking more than a couple years down the road.”
“Every time we burn a gallon of gas or an acre of rain forest, aren't we killing the future to preserve the present?”
“Did you ever think about life as a metaphor for television?”
“You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”
“With insomnia, you're never really awake; but you're never really asleep.”
“Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?”
“You must realize that one day you will die. Until then you are worthless.”
“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.”
“Looming visage noble American colonel. Courageous, renown of history, Colonel Sanders, image forever accompanied odor of sacrificial meat. Eternal flame offering wind savory perfume roasted flesh.”
“Our Generation has had no Great war, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.”
“How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?”
“Look up at the stars and you're gone.”
“Stick and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.”
“No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted. I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell tastes like oranges and gasoline.”
“To stand here and try to fix her life is just a big waste of time. People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messed cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”
“What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.”
“His saliva tasted like the wet dicks of ten thousand lonely truck drivers.”
“Katherine Kenton remains among the generation of women who feel that the most sincere form of flattery is the male erection.”
“All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.”
“The only thing that separates us from the animals...is we have pornography. ”
“Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.”
“Not everything is about money. You didn't even say, hello. You are not your sad little wallet.”
“We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.”
“You're not getting this back you know. Consider it an asshole tax.”
“More than one side? You're Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass! ”
“I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more. ”
“Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.”
“Kids grow up connected to nothing these days, plugged in and living lives boosted to them from other people.”
“I just don't want to die without a few scars.”
“If you look at old pictures, Irene Casey is so pretty. Not just young, but pretty the way you look when your face goes smooth, the skin around your eyes and lips relaxed, the pretty you only look when you love the person taking the picture.”
“If you're not drunk and half naked by this point, you're not paying attention.”
“You know that old phrase ‘Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it’? Well, I think those who remember the past are even worse off.”
“I tell everybody, I’m tired of being jerked around. Okay? So let’s just not pretend. I don’t have fuck for a heart. You people are not going to make me feel anything. You are not going to get to me.”
“Nothing is static.”
“There are bodies buried everywhere you just have to know where to look.”
“I spent my life attacking everything because I was too afraid to risk creating anything.”
“The more things you own, the more they own you.”
“Face it, dude. You nearly did sex on God's table. You're already shame spiralling big-time.”
“That’s pretty much how we get through our own lives, watching television. Smoking crap. Self-medicating. Redirecting our attention. Jacking off. Denial.”
“This is less teaching than damage control. You may as well paint a house that’s on fire.”
“You can’t fool people into loving you.”
“I told him to buy land, my mum says, they’re not making it anymore.”
“That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you’d never want to own or do another thing. That if you could eat or sleep enough, you’d never need more. That if enough people loved you, you’d stop needing love.”
“This deluded little rube who really thought the future would be any better. If you just worked hard enough. If you just learned enough. Ran fast enough. Everything would turn out right, and your life would amount to something.”
“I used rebellion as a way to hide out. We use criticism as a fake participation.”