Quotes from Stranger than Fiction

“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

Popular quotes

“Do you ever feel lost?” The question hangs between us, intimate, awkward only on my end. He doesn’t scoff as Tactus and Fitchner would, or scratch his balls like Sevro, or chuckle like Cassius might have, or purr as Victra would. I’m not sure what Mustang might have done. But Roque, despite his Color and all the things that make him different, slowly slides a marker into the book and sets it on the nightstand beside the four-poster, taking his time and allowing an answer to evolve between us. Movements thoughtful and organic, like Dancer’s were before he died. There’s a stillness in him, vast and majestic, the same stillness I remember in my father. “Quinn once told me a story.” He waits for me to moan a grievance at the mention of a story, and when I don’t, his tone sinks into deeper gravity. “Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love. In those days, they raised such animals to carry messages across great distances. These two were born in the same cage, raised by the same man, and sold on the same day to different men on the eve of a great war. “The pigeons suffered apart from each other, each incomplete without their lover. Far and wide their masters took them, and the pigeons feared they would never again find each other, for they began to see how vast the world was, and how terrible the things in it. For months and months, they carried messages for their masters, flying over battle lines, through the air over men who killed one another for land. When the war ended, the pigeons were set free by their masters. But neither knew where to go, neither knew what to do, so each flew home. And there they found each other again, as they were always destined to return home and find, instead of the past, their future.”
― Pierce Brown, quote from Golden Son

“Its hold was loaded with coffee, rice, tea, oil seeds and jute. Black smoke poured from its one stack, darkening the hot cloudless sky. Alexander”
― Walter Farley, quote from The Black Stallion

“Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the truth, maybe I didn't want things to turn abstract, but I felt I should say it, because this was the moment to say it, because it suddenly dawned on me that this was why I had come, to tell him 'You are the only person I'd like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.”
― André Aciman, quote from Call Me by Your Name

“The woman had gasped beneath his heavy body. He rubbed against her, lubricated by the warm, sticky liquid, but as her body gradually grew cold, he felt as though they'd been glued together. She seemed to be see-sawing between agony and ecstasy, but finally Satake pressed his lips over hers to quiet the groans-of pain or pleasure-that were leaking from her mouth. He found the hole that he had made in her side and worked his finger deep into the opening. Blood was pumping from the wound, staining their sex a gruesome crimson. He wanted to get further inside, to melt into her. As he was about to come, he pulled his lips from her and she whispered in his ear: "I'm finished . . . finished."
"I know," he'd said, and he could still hear the exact sound of his own voice.”
― Natsuo Kirino, quote from Out

“And there's no way I'm leaving you alone with Prince Perfect."
"So you don't trust me to resist his charms?"
"I don't even trust myself. I've never seen anyone work a crowd the way he does. I'm pretty sure the rocks and trees are getting ready to swear fealty to him.”
― Leigh Bardugo, quote from Siege and Storm

Interesting books

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.