Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. -Blackberry picking

I have loved flowers that fade,Within whose magic tentsRich hues have marriage madeWith sweet unmemoried scents:A honeymoon delight,A joy of love at sight,That ages in an hourMy song be like a flower!

Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.

As soon as it sounds fine, I'm on to the next thing, man.

You're put on this platform where you see beauty every day, and you kinda get numb to it. So then it's like, 'What else do you have? You really can't hold a conversation? Next'.

To find recreation in amusements is not happiness; for this joy springs from alien and extrinsic sources, and is therefore dependent upon and subject to interruption by a thousand accidents, which may minister inevitable affliction.

We spoke of ourselves as "emancipated" when we got the vote. Yet we are still slaves to the superficial and the superfluous. We are concerned with the length of our skirts, with the latest lipstick, with the newest thrill in hats. We are impressed by advertisements that insist we must be alluring; we must adopt a time-consuming coiffure, we must spend hours with the "beautician," we must attend fashion shows. As long as women are preoccupied with nonessentials we shall be afflicted with infantilism, passivity, and the eventual disillusionment that results from trivial, unproductive lives.

Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.

Pleasure, that immortal essence, the beauteous bead sparkling in the cup, effervesces soon and subsides.

Turns out it was mostly a lie. But, at least for a short while, it was a beautiful one.

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.

She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except money lost its value once it was hers.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat. Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay. To-morrow 's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give.

Money and fame are trashy and don't guarantee happiness, but we all refuse really to know it.

The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire- soon it will go out.

I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.

Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent--sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction.

Worship your body, beauty, and sexual allure and you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.

She was not an adventure, she was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

You frequently ask, where are the friends of your childhood, and urge that they shall be brought back to you. As far as I am able to learn, those of your friends who are not in jail are still right there in your native village. You point out that they were wont to share your gambols, If so, you are certainly entitled to have theirs now.