You'd be surprised just how fast you can close the door on your past. Learn needlepoint. Make a stained-glass lamp.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You digest and absorb your life by turning it into stories,' he says, 'the same way this theater seems to digest people.' With one hand, he points to a carpet stain, this dark stain sticky and growing mold, branched with arms and legs. Other events—the ones you can’t digest—they poison you. Those worst parts of your life, those moments you can’t talk about, they rot you from the inside out. Until you’re Cassandra’s wet shadow on the ground. Sunk in your own yellow protein mud. But the stories that you can digest, that you can tell—you can take control of those past moments. You can shape them, craft them. Master them. And use them to your own good. Those are stories as important as food. Those are stories you can use to make people laugh or cry or sick. Or scared. To make people feel the way you felt. To help exhaust that past moment for them and for you. Until that moment is dead. Consumed. Digested. Absorbed.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You gain power by pretending to be weak.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You had a near life experience.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You have to give up! You have to give up! You have to realize that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless!

— Chuck Palahniuk

You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.

— Chuck Palahniuk

You know that old phrase ‘Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it’? Well, I think those who remember the past are even worse off.

— Chuck Palahniuk