Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

I feel like when it comes to the models, certain models are now like commodities in certain ways.

Everything does not have to be a commodity.

Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth.

Commercialism is laying its great greasy paw upon everything including the irresponsible quest of thrills; so that, whatever democracy may be theoretically, one is sometimes tempted to define it practically as standardized and commercialized melodrama.

What we're already doing is communism. The first step we have to make is to realize that we're already closer to it than we think.

We might think of dollars as being 'certificates of performance.' The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him.

The blessing that the market does not ask about birth is paid for in the exchange society by the fact that the possibilities conferred by birth are molded to fit the production of goods that can be bought on the market.

I want everybody to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine.

There can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.

A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time.

Everything we make in life, eventually, is sold for a dollar or a penny or given away.

If I were to give a summary of the tendency of our times, I would say, Quantity. The multitude, the mass spirit, dominates everywhere, destroying quality. Our entire life--production, politics, and education--rests on quantity, on numbers. The worker who once took pride in the thoroughness and quality of his work, has been replaced by brainless, incompetent automatons, who turn out enormous quantities of things, valueless to themselves, and generally injurious to the rest of mankind. Thus quantity, instead of adding to life's comforts and peace, has merely increased man's burden.

The first step is learning to monitor your thoughts; to think about what you are thinking about.

The corporations have taken over. Even in the recording studio. Actually, the corporate companies have taken over American life most everywhere. Go coast to coast and you will see people wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thoughts, eating the same food. Everything is processed.

Whenever you get a bunch of guys that are funny or think they’re funny, when you first meet, there’s always a lot of bits and it’s never, ever, ever funny. So basically you have to get through the awkwardness.

To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be.

I find it quite useful to think of a free-market economy - or partly free market economy - as sort of the equivalent of an ecosystem. Just as animals flourish in niches, people who specialize in some narrow niche can do very well.

Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.

I think, fundamentally, music is something inherently people love and need and relate to, and a lot of what's out right now feels like McDonalds. It's quick-fix. You kind of have a stomachache afterwards.

He realized that he had thought only about the first step, never imagined the last.

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

The industrial leader of the 20th century was a system-builder. He was a visionary in terms of what could be built; got the capital together; certainly convinced investors that it was possible; and then ran a high-volume production system that would spew out a vast array of almost identical goods and services. They would be changed from time to time; there was research and development, to be sure. But the system was built around production, not innovation.

The physical stamina [in Revolution]. I was just shocked by it. I didn't think I had it in me ever, and I wasn't terribly young when I did it. I was in my early forties. That was the first thing I was struck by, not by the acting, not by anything else, but by the physicality.

Money is the counter that enables life to be lived socially; it is life as truly as sovereigns and banknotes are money.