“Tyler, I'm grateful to you; for everything that you've done for me. But this is too much. I don't want this.What do you want? Wanna go back to the shit job, fuckin' condo world, watching sitcoms? Fuck you, I won't do it.”

“Deliver me from Swedish furniture.Deliver me from clever art.And the phone rang and Tyler answered."If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't."May I never be complete.May I never be content.May I never be perfect.Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.”

“I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hit me as hard as you can."I looked around and said, okay. Okay, I say, but outside in the parking lot.So we went outside, and I asked if Tyler wanted it in the face or in the stomach.Tyler said, "Surprise me."I said I had never hit anybody.Tyle said, "So go crazy, man."I said, close your eye.Tyler said, "No."Like every guy on his first night at fight club, I breathed in and swung my fist in a roundhouse at Tyler's jaw like in every cowboy movie we'd ever seen, and me, my fist connected with the side of Tyler's neck.”

“I am helpless.I am stupid, and all I do is want and need things.My tiny life. My little shit job. My Swedish furniture. I never, no, never told anyone this, but before I met Tyler, I was planning to buy a dog and name it "Entourage."This is how bad your life can get.”

“Listen, now, you're going to die, Ray-mond K. K. K. Hessel, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. So lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. I don't give a shit. I have a gun.Finally, you were listening and coming out of the little tragedy in your head.Fill in the blank. What does Raymond Hessel want to be when he grows up?Go home, you said you just wanted to go home, please.No shit, I said. But after that, how did you want to spend your life? If you could do anything in the world.Make something up.You didn't know.Then you're dead right now, I said. I said, now turn your head.Death to commence in ten, in nine, in eight.A vet, you said. You want to be a vet, a veterinarian.You could be in school working your ass off, Raymond Hessel, or you could be dead. You choose. I stuffed your wallet into the back of your jeans. So you really wanted to be an animal doctor. I took the saltwater muzzle of the gun off one cheek and pressed it against another. Is that what you've always wanted to be, Dr. Raymond K. K. K. K. Hessel, a veterinarian?...So, I said, go back to school. If you wake up tomorrow morning, you find a way to get back into school.I have your license.I know who you are. I know where you live. I'm keeping your license, and I'm going to check on you, mister Raymond K. Hessel. In three months, and then six months, and then a year, and if you aren't back in school on your way to being a veterinarian, you will be dead...Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you've ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life.”

“Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.”

“Its only after you've lost everything," Tyler says, "that you're free to do anything.”