And all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was thought, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.

— Chuck Klosterman

And if something is only itself, it doesn't particularly matter.

— Chuck Klosterman

And I'm probably wrong. Maybe not completely, but partially. And maybe not today, but eventually.

— Chuck Klosterman

And the quality all these reasonable failures share is an inability to accept that the statue quo is temporary.

— Chuck Klosterman

Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they're honest about everything.

— Chuck Klosterman

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

— Chuck Klosterman

As recently as the grunge era, there remained a Bohemian cachet in casually mentioning that you didn’t own a TV. But nobody thinks like that anymore. Today, claiming you don’t own a TV simply means you’re poor (or maybe depressed). In one ten-year span, high-end television usurped the cultural positions of film, rock, and literary fiction.

— Chuck Klosterman

...because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you think about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.

— Chuck Klosterman

But I still feel like I lost. We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in the sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet. Probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real-but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different from anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.

— Chuck Klosterman

...but the future is a teenage crackhead who makes shit up as he goes along.

— Chuck Klosterman