27 Haunting Chuck Palahniuk Quotes Teach Us How To Move Past Fear
It's time to stop and think.
We all have fears in our lives, but some of us live by those fears. It could be small things that hold us back — like keeping onto friendships that should have ended a long time ago, or never really stepping out of your comfort zone to tell that guy-friend you feel something MORE.
Or it could be really big things that eat at us our entire lives, like cripplingly low self-esteem, giving up on those big dreams of traveling the world or settling for a marriage that makes you miserable.
Little or big, these things — these fears — chip away at our happiness and leave us walking through life in a fog.
Life isn't easy, and no one portrays this internal struggle better than Chuck Palahniuk, author of SUPER famous books, including Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Choke. A few of his novels have even been adapted into films that have subsequently gained cult status.
He has a dark tone to his writing, but something that is ever-relatable and sinks in to the darker side of the human psyche. Palahniuk's novels, falling under the genre of transgressive fiction, often deal with facing fears and being courageous enough to break free from societal expectations in order to gain happiness or freedom.
Although he describes himself as a romantic, he writes novels that are often described as nihilistic.
In his works, his characters often are severely depressed — dissatisfied with societal norms — and they consequently shake up their lives as a way of pursuing something more meaningful to themselves.
He's not afraid to confront challenging themes in his writing, including mental illness, addiction, and anti-consumerism.
Now, maybe Chuck Palahniuk’s characters are a bit twisted (Tyler Durden may not portray the ideals of what we would call a great role model), but he definitely knows how to write about the thrill of letting go of everything in order to gain even more. And maybe there's more truth to his words than many of us want to believe.
So here are some Chuck Palahniuk quotes that encourage you to let go of your fears and make REAL change in your life, so you can be happier.
If you're searching for the best quotes and memes to share with the people you love (or just want to feel inspired yourself) ... look no further! From the sweetest love quotes, inspirational sayings, and hilarious friendship truths, we've got you covered.
1.
It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. — Chuck Palahniuk
2.
People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown. — Chuck Palahniuk
3.
You will always have some excuse not to live your life. — Chuck Palahniuk
4.
No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention. — Chuck Palahniuk
5.
At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. — Chuck Palahniuk
6.
When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves. — Chuck Palahniuk
7.
What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction. — Chuck Palahniuk
8.
All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired. — Chuck Palahniuk
9.
You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past. — Chuck Palahniuk
10.
If we can forgive what’s been done to us… If we can forgive what we’ve done to others… If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villains or victims. Only then can we maybe rescue the world. — Chuck Palahniuk
11.
Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish. — Chuck Palahniuk
12.
We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. — Chuck Palahniuk
13.
It’s funny how you never think about the women you’ve had. It’s always the ones who get away that you can’t forget. — Chuck Palahniuk
14.
We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are … Or we can decide for ourselves. — Chuck Palahniuk
15.
Your past is just a story. and once you realize this it has no power over you. — Chuck Palahniuk
16.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring. — Chuck Palahniuk
17.
What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger. — Chuck Palahniuk
18.
People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love. — Chuck Palahniuk
19.
Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life. — Chuck Palahniuk
20.
The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open. — Chuck Palahniuk
21.
Find out what you’re afraid of and go live there. — Chuck Palahniuk
22.
I don’t want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that’s not on the map. A real adventure.’ A spinx. A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined. — Chuck Palahniuk
23.
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. — Chuck Palahniuk
24.
May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. — Chuck Palahniuk
25.
All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad. — Chuck Palahniuk
26.
The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. — Chuck Palahniuk
27.
It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace. — Chuck Palahniuk