Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

And you don't have to care, so don't pretend. Nobody needs a best fake friend.

Interesting to me, at least, is that often you meet certain king of people and you feel, in their company, extremely warm and hopeful that they care about you, but you also think that they probably have 10 other people they put their attention to. You think, "Wow, this person is making me feel so special and like they really love me." But the savvy part of me thinks, "They probably do that to everybody."

Happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people.

You're never nice to your friends. You're nice to people you don't like!

The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too. [The human element]

Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

Twas never merry world Since lowly feigning was called compliment.

Taren Ferry folk had a reputation for slyness and trickery. If you shook hands with a Taren Ferry man, people said, you counted your fingers afterwards.

I see time away hasn’t made you any more charming. (Fang) Oh, I can be charming. I just choose not to. People start to think you like them, then when you stab them in the back, they take it so personally. Really pisses me off. (Thorn)

Affectation naturally counterfeits those excellences which are placed at the greatest distance from possibility of attainment, because, knowing our own defects, we eagerly endeavor to supply them with artificial excellence.

We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying.

I'm always suspicious of people, especially being in a weird realm of people kind of knowing me... and not knowing what people's motives might be.

It was unfair that people could pretend to be one thing when they were really something else. That they would get you on their side and then do nothing but fail, and fail, and fail again. People should come with warnings, like cigarette packs: involvement would kill you over time.

I spent the whole time battering people I liked and singing with my arm round people I loathed.

Hypocrites always wanna play innocent

All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.

What incensed him the most was the blatant jokes of the ones that passed it all off as a jest, pretending to understand everything and in reality not knowing their own minds.

I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me.

It sure is boring to be around people who are in character all the time. I always find it's closer to mental illness than acting excellence.

I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.

I can smell bullshit from a mile away but it's so much harder to detect when it's around you all day.

You just let people do what they do and look at them and give them enough rope until they do what you thought they were going to do... which is screw you over.

Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog. Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.