to be fair, I work in the library...
So I've been reading a lot of Chuck Palahniuk lately (the author of fight club,) and there's so many amazing quotes about human nature and life that it's making me more introspective than ever before.
In the novel Survivor, about someone that survived the mass suicide of an obscure religion, the main character says "What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step too." Even people going nowhere with life have to get a head start. We're all climbing our "Stairmaster to Heaven."
I'm in the middle of the novel Rant, which is set up to be an oral biography of Buster "Rant" Casey, a fictional redneck with a dangerous addiction. For someone with so little smarts, the boy really understood human nature.
"You're a different human being to everyone you meet. ...
You only ever is in the eye's of other folks." He says. It's true. We are only as others see us. Some philosopher once said something like "When left completely up to their own devices, their own free will, all humans will do is imitate each other." I think Rant knew exactly what this philosopher meant.
One of the other characters in the novel noted something interested about names - "Everyone gave a different name to everybody else... How folks lay claim to a loved on is they give you a name of their own. They figure to label you as their property."
We all do this. Whereas My grandmother calls her daughter Susie, on paper she's susan. To my dad she's Suze. To her friends from home, she's Susie. To her friends here, she's Sue. To me, she's Mom or Ma, and to my brother she's Mommy.
It's all our different ways of laying claim to something that's not ours. Letting the world know that they can't have it. Saying "This here? This is mine. Go ahead, try and f**k with me."
Diary, a novel about an artist with a deathly destiny, contains possibly the most poignant quote about Love that modern literature will ever produce. Misty, the main character, speaks to her coma-bound husband about their daughter.
"Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't."
I'll let you think that one out on your own.
When a Model gets in a horribly disfiguring accident, her whole world changes, and leaves her with a whole new outlook on life in Invisible Monsters.
"The murderer, the victim, the witness, each of us thinks our role is the lead. Probably goes for anybody in the world.
It's all Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.
Because Beauty is Power.
The same way Money is Power.
The same way a Gun is Power."
We all have our own invisible audience, watching every move we make. For many of us, our invisible audience is more like invisible monsters, criticizing every move we make, the same way our parents did, the same way our teachers did, the same way our friends did - we've taught ourselves that nothing is ever good enough.
In Haunted, writers are given an opportunity to leave their lives behind, and create their masterpiece. Their supervisor and captor, Mr. Whittier, has this to say;
"What stops you here is what stops your entire life. The air will always be too filled with something. Your body too sore or tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have some excuse not to live your life."
I think this one's self explanatory.
Chuck Palahniuk's novels give us main characters that we aren't supposed to like. We aren't supposed to care about them. We're supposed to detest them. Loathe them. Seethe.
Whether we love them or hate them...
we know them.
We know who they are.
But most importantly
We know why they are.
So far, I've read Survivor, Diary, Lullaby, Choke, Invisible Monsters, Haunted and Snuff. I'm in the middle of Rant. There's not a single one of those books I wouldn't recommend reading.
Hopefully at least one person reads this, and goes out to get one of these books from their local library or bookstore.
I want to leave you with a passage from Haunted.
::
Looking back, it was always Mr. Whittiers stance that we're always right.
"It's not a matter of right and wrong," Mr. Whittier would say. Really, there is no wrong. Not in our own minds. Our own reality.
You can never set off to do the wrong thing.
You can never say the wrong thing.
In your own mind, you are always right. Every action you take - what you do or say or how you choose to appear - is automatically correct the moment you act.
His hand shaking as he lifts his cup, Mr Whittier says, "Even if you were to tell yourself, 'Today, I'm going to drink coffee the wrong way... from a dirty boot.' Even that would be right, because you chose to drink coffee from that boot."
Because you can do nothing wrong. You are always right. Even when you say, "I'm such an idiot, I'm so wrong..." you're right. You're right about being wrong. You're right even when you're an idiot.
"No matter how stupid your idea," Mr. Whittier would say, "You're doomed to be right because it's yours."
...
We're all condemned to be right. About everything we can consider.
In this shifting liquid world, where everyone is right and any idea is right the moment you act on it, Mr. Whittier would say, the only sure thing is what you promised.
::
In the novel Survivor, about someone that survived the mass suicide of an obscure religion, the main character says "What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step too." Even people going nowhere with life have to get a head start. We're all climbing our "Stairmaster to Heaven."
I'm in the middle of the novel Rant, which is set up to be an oral biography of Buster "Rant" Casey, a fictional redneck with a dangerous addiction. For someone with so little smarts, the boy really understood human nature.
"You're a different human being to everyone you meet. ...
You only ever is in the eye's of other folks." He says. It's true. We are only as others see us. Some philosopher once said something like "When left completely up to their own devices, their own free will, all humans will do is imitate each other." I think Rant knew exactly what this philosopher meant.
One of the other characters in the novel noted something interested about names - "Everyone gave a different name to everybody else... How folks lay claim to a loved on is they give you a name of their own. They figure to label you as their property."
We all do this. Whereas My grandmother calls her daughter Susie, on paper she's susan. To my dad she's Suze. To her friends from home, she's Susie. To her friends here, she's Sue. To me, she's Mom or Ma, and to my brother she's Mommy.
It's all our different ways of laying claim to something that's not ours. Letting the world know that they can't have it. Saying "This here? This is mine. Go ahead, try and f**k with me."
Diary, a novel about an artist with a deathly destiny, contains possibly the most poignant quote about Love that modern literature will ever produce. Misty, the main character, speaks to her coma-bound husband about their daughter.
"Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't."
I'll let you think that one out on your own.
When a Model gets in a horribly disfiguring accident, her whole world changes, and leaves her with a whole new outlook on life in Invisible Monsters.
"The murderer, the victim, the witness, each of us thinks our role is the lead. Probably goes for anybody in the world.
It's all Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.
Because Beauty is Power.
The same way Money is Power.
The same way a Gun is Power."
We all have our own invisible audience, watching every move we make. For many of us, our invisible audience is more like invisible monsters, criticizing every move we make, the same way our parents did, the same way our teachers did, the same way our friends did - we've taught ourselves that nothing is ever good enough.
In Haunted, writers are given an opportunity to leave their lives behind, and create their masterpiece. Their supervisor and captor, Mr. Whittier, has this to say;
"What stops you here is what stops your entire life. The air will always be too filled with something. Your body too sore or tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have some excuse not to live your life."
I think this one's self explanatory.
Chuck Palahniuk's novels give us main characters that we aren't supposed to like. We aren't supposed to care about them. We're supposed to detest them. Loathe them. Seethe.
Whether we love them or hate them...
we know them.
We know who they are.
But most importantly
We know why they are.
So far, I've read Survivor, Diary, Lullaby, Choke, Invisible Monsters, Haunted and Snuff. I'm in the middle of Rant. There's not a single one of those books I wouldn't recommend reading.
Hopefully at least one person reads this, and goes out to get one of these books from their local library or bookstore.
I want to leave you with a passage from Haunted.
::
Looking back, it was always Mr. Whittiers stance that we're always right.
"It's not a matter of right and wrong," Mr. Whittier would say. Really, there is no wrong. Not in our own minds. Our own reality.
You can never set off to do the wrong thing.
You can never say the wrong thing.
In your own mind, you are always right. Every action you take - what you do or say or how you choose to appear - is automatically correct the moment you act.
His hand shaking as he lifts his cup, Mr Whittier says, "Even if you were to tell yourself, 'Today, I'm going to drink coffee the wrong way... from a dirty boot.' Even that would be right, because you chose to drink coffee from that boot."
Because you can do nothing wrong. You are always right. Even when you say, "I'm such an idiot, I'm so wrong..." you're right. You're right about being wrong. You're right even when you're an idiot.
"No matter how stupid your idea," Mr. Whittier would say, "You're doomed to be right because it's yours."
...
We're all condemned to be right. About everything we can consider.
In this shifting liquid world, where everyone is right and any idea is right the moment you act on it, Mr. Whittier would say, the only sure thing is what you promised.
::