Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

What I try to do as an actor is constantly find that, find ways to risk, find opportunities to fall on my face if it's going to be worth it, and then maybe I'll surprise myself.

I always want to surprise myself, more than anybody else.

All I really want to do is things I haven't done. 'I'm gonna put a paper bag on my head and be on the cover of 'Billboard,' see what I can get away with - if they'll let me.' And they let me. And I am literally giggling inside for, like, a month that I got away with it.

How can you go out on a limb if you do not know your own tree? No art ever came out of not risking your neck. And risk--experiment--is a considerable part of the joy of doing.

I think every album you have to stretch further and further, give people another piece of you. But then I always try to deviate from the norm.

It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them.

Every time I collaborate with an artist, I want to surprise fans. I want to do something new.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.

Some people say, 'Write what you know.' My thing is, 'Write what scares you.'

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

The problem as you get older... is that you become more self-aware. At the same time, you have to surprise yourself. There's no way of arranging the surprise, so it is tricky.

Poetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel.

For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it.

What guides me is to do work that's more avant-garde - things that I think are special. You can easily become a celebrity and get caught up in all that blur. I just want to work and surprise myself.

Part of being an artist is being willing to be shocked, being willing to be surprised, being willing to be hurt.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

The dream is to keep surprising yourself, never mind the audience.

Every time I do a project, it always comes with a level of discomfort and not knowing how to do it.

I wish I had less fear about creating my own parts.

Opening myself to criticism was a big door to go through. You can be afraid about something your whole life, about being out in public where people know your name but not you, and it can cripple your ability to try new things.

I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk.

If you think about what you do, if you become self-conscious about it, you've got to be very careful. Because I really like to write without self-awareness of what I'm doing.

When you can surprise yourself, you're truly acting.

A magic show and a concert are very similar in the way I like keeping things a mystery and not doing them the same way every time. The listener and the audience never know what's going to happen next.

I was kind of nervous to put 'Learning' out: it's a lot different. That's who I am. I'm going to push the boundaries.