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" My teacher Tom Spanbauer, the man who got me started writing in his workshop, used to say: 'Writers write because they weren't invited to a party.' That always struck so true, and people always nod their heads when they hear that. Especially writers. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Teacher

Man

Writing

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" You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form. "

Chuck Palahniuk

You

Incredible

" I usually write in my kitchen, which is a large, octagonal room that looks into woods - three big windows look out into the trees. "

" Emotionally, in our minds, we get so filled with resentments where we've got a story about absolutely everything. "

" I write nothing but contemporary romances. "

" I haven't shoplifted since I was 13. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Since

" The first step to eternal life is you have to die. "

" Think about George Orwell's three-minute hate from the novel '1984' and how that left everyone sort of exhausted and able to live their boring humdrum lives. If our lives are going to continue being unfulfilled and boring, perhaps we do need some sort of short-term violent chaos incorporated into them, to make them more palatable. "

" Where would Jesus be if no one had written the gospels? "

" The young men, they look to me for a story they can get nowhere else, a challenging risky story. "

" When I first started writing, it was me alone with a computer in my apartment. I hated the time away from other people, and my writing sucked. Now I have a laptop; I can do the most tedious part of my job in a public place. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Time

Alone

" Your life isn't about doing one perfect 'thing' and then falling down dead. It's more like going to church or writing a book. You do it over and over, always trying to be a little bit better. Then you die. "

" My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhealthy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas. "

" One thing I really envy about my friends who have kids is that as their children develop, they're able to revisit their own developmental stages and recognise themselves and undo a lot of things they decided. "

" I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Guevara, here's our next Fidel Castro, here's someone who's going to wave the flag.' And I was like, 'No, it's just a book. And if I beat that drum, if I play that song one more time, I won't have a career.' "

" As we grow older I always think, why didn't I do more when I was young, why didn't I risk more? "

" I like to get people moving and jumping. I think it's good to add more emotion and chaos. "

" I just don't want to die without a few scars. "

" My private history in terms of people in my life who are dead is very easy to discuss. I don't feel those people can be threatened or intruded upon now. But I am enormously protective of the people who are currently in my life, my existing friends and family. That is where the curtain is drawn. "

" Few things in life seem more sexy than a banned book. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Book

Seem

" When working, my diet degrades to pizza three times a day, because I don't want to distract myself from anything. "

" My publisher's been shipping me to comic-cons, and it seems that my readership overlaps perfectly with the comic-con crowd. "

" My books didn't fit a marketing niche. "

" If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up? "

" I think my heart always goes out to men at the peak of their celebrity who checked out. There's such an odd, horrible trend in my lifetime for it - Kurt Cobain, David Foster Wallace, Alexander McQueen, Heath Ledger. "

" I know that I'm going to die and that you're going to die. I can't do anything about that. But I can explore it through a metaphor and make a kind of funny, dark story about it, and in doing so, really exhaust and research as many aspects of it as I can imagine. And in a way, that does give me some closure. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Research

Story

" Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that's usually how you end up crying? "

" My father used to call me 'bird bones' and, well, the name fits. "

" Some of the best ideas I get seem to happen when I'm doing mindless manual labor or exercise. I'm not sure how that happens, but it leaves me free for remarkable ideas to occur. "

" There's a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me. "

" The folks who read my books are so passionate about each one of them that the people making my movies are more afraid of my readership than they are of me. "

Chuck Palahniuk

Movies

Afraid