Sam Abel > Sam's Quotes

“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.
Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.
This is all practice.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

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

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly -- all these make for great stories.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, “Why?”
Why did I cause so much pain?
Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love?
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, “No, that’s not right.”
Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashion makeovers that only leave me trapped being me.
Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am.
What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.”
― Chuck Palahniuk , Invisible Monsters

“I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“I feel my heart ache, but I've forgotten what that feeling means.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“Find good in what the world says is evil.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

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

“We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“It can only take a moment to waste the rest of your life.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Snuff

“What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step, too.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

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

“People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“For the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel peaceful. Not happy. Not sad. Not anxious. Not horny. Just all the higher parts of my brain closing up shop. The cerebral cortex. The cerebellum. That's where my problem is. I'm now simplifying myself. Somewhere balanced in the perfect middle between happiness and sadness. Because sponges never have a bad day.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and again. The truth is, you will be. And the secret is, this will hurt less and less each time until you can't feel a thing. Trust me on this.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Life's greatest comfort is being able to look over your shoulder and see people worse off, waiting in line behind you.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Asfixia

“After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“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.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Asfixia

“What if reality is nothing but some disease?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“Sometimes your best way to deal with shit is not to hold yourself as such a precious little prize.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters