Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.

For your own self-respect and sanity, your creative freedom, you have to be careful that you don't rely too much on other people's opinions of what you do because it can stunt and inhibit you.

I'm just going to write my books and do my work and release it. Let the world decide what it is, and if it's any good or not.

No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.

If people like something you've done - or don't like it - this shouldn't determine what you write or how you write it. Those are two separate things entirely: your work and the world's response to it.

I'm fascinated with what happens to the creative output when you isolate yourself from the approval and disapproval of the people around you.

The worst frame of mind to be in is what the fans like or what the fans want, because then you lose the authenticity of who you are as an artist and who you are as a person.

I mean my point as an artist is I'm on my own little weird journey across the sky here and whether or not anybody's listening, or listening to the degree I would like them to, at the end of the day has to be an inconsequential thing because I can't chase this culture.

I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.

However, I don't feel the world is looking over my shoulder when I am working - I never think about this at all. What I think about is trying to make my work pure, and if it is pure then it can be accessible. It is quite straight forward really.

Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

I don't care what other people think any more about me writing my own parts.

It was a lot easier to write songs before I had a record deal, because the record labels and the industry doesn't mean to put pressure on you, but they do. They don't realize that they are, but you end up having a pressure there that you feel. At times I feel myself wanting to say, 'Just let me do what I do.'

Certainly in cartooning I'm given huge free rein at the moment.

If you start to just aim for what the audience wants to hear, you're already hamstrung because you don't have any freedom.

I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

I think the moment you start trying to please a fan base is when you start going downhill. I'm going to always, always write about what I want, even if it doesn't necessarily cater to most of them.

I didn't want to skate for someone else or for certain marks.

I care so much about making things that are useful for people to have and listen to, but I don't care so much that I won't do whatever the hell I want. It's just one of those things.

All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.

I try not to think too much about what the audience is thinking and what they think I should do.

I never want to be in a position where I have to defend my material. It's too subjective. It's for other people to defend or not defend.

I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.