Quotes from Stranger than Fiction

Chuck Palahniuk ·  233 pages

Rating: (20.6K votes)


“A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“I'm sorry if this all seems a little rushed and desperate. It is.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart."
— Chuck Palahniuk, Stranger Than Fiction”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction



“So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn’t funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it.

That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Scratching Yogi's ears Michelle says 'That's just part of his job, the comforting. That's what I mean by the bhatisvata. That he's more concerned with comforting and helping, even more than his own well-being." This is a trait that more "people" should encompass.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“The French philosopher Jacques Derrida likens writing fiction to a software code that operates in the hardware of your mind. Stringing together separate macros that, combined, will create a reaction.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Me encantaría creer en un mundo invisible. Eso destruiría todo el sufrimiento y la presión del mundo físico. Pero también negaría el valor del dinero que tengo en el banco, de mi casa que no está nada mal y de todo mi esfuerzo. Todos nuestros problemas y todo lo bueno que nos pasa podrían desdeñarse simplemente porque no son más reales que las escenas de un libro o una película. Un mundo eterno e invisible convertiría el nuestro en una ilusión.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction



“Slang is the writer's palette of colors.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn’t funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Nobody used to look at George Washington, with his wooden teeth, in his powdered wig, and say, Fashion Victim.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Why are you alone? I mean, we are all alone. Aloneness is... that´s life. It´s the quality of our aloneness that matters.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction



“Solitude is a natural place for a writer to be.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“The problem with proximity friends is, they move away. They quit or get fired.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


“Friendship is what really resolves and mitigates loneliness while not compromising the self in the way that love does, romantic love does.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Stranger than Fiction


About the author

Chuck Palahniuk
Born place: in Pasco, WA, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Diary entry, summer 1973. It may be there in a distracted glance out of an open window or in the split second of an absent look when you speak to her, or in the guarded inflections of her voice as she replies, or in the subtle chemistry of touch or smell or the taste of her skin in your mouth, or in some unspecified sixth sense that you can’t name, but when love is over, its signals are louder than disclosure, if only you are willing and open enough to acknowledge them. But of course we shake off these feelings as if they were mere irritations, as if they were unimportant and uninvited guests at a feast. “Not now,” you say, fobbing them off with shallow excuses and feigning more urgent business elsewhere. But they linger long after the party, and skulk in a corner where they plot and fester and return to ask their impertinent questions in the still of night, when she’s sleeping and wearing her child’s face. When she looks so beautiful and vulnerable with her mouth slightly open, and her hair a mess on the pillow, but as you reach to touch her, she turns unconsciously away toward the window, and then the questions start again, and you can’t sleep….”
― Sting, quote from Broken Music


“nothing is stranger to man than his own image”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.


“It may be that there are kernels of truth in a few of these doctrines, but their widespread acceptance
betokens a lack of intellectual rigor, an absence of skepticism, a need to replace experiments by desires.”
― Carl Sagan, quote from Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence


“All of a sudden, there is no hurry. There will be time for everything. For the breezes that blow and for the rainwater drying in the gutters, for Maury to find a place of safety in the world, for Malcolm to come back from the dead and ask her about birds and jets. For the big things too, things like beauty and vengeance and honor and righteousness and the grace of God and the slow spilling of the earth from day to night and back to day again.
It is spread out before her, compressed into one single moment. She will be able to see it all.”
― Alden Bell, quote from The Reapers are the Angels


“And it´s so different for a lot of people I´ve known. One partner doesn´t love the other enough to stop drinking, or gambling, or running around with other women. One is the giver and one is the taker. The giver wishes the taker would stop”
― Alma Katsu, quote from The Taker


Interesting books

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
(80.6K)
Through the Looking-...
by Lewis Carroll
Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1
(24.7K)
Conversations with G...
by Neale Donald Walsch
The Charm School
(29.1K)
The Charm School
by Nelson DeMille
Night Star
(46.9K)
Night Star
by Alyson Noel
Her Fearful Symmetry
(81.3K)
Her Fearful Symmetry
by Audrey Niffenegger
Hard Bitten
(32.2K)
Hard Bitten
by Chloe Neill

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.