Haunted Palahniuk novel

People in France have a phrase: Spirit of the Stairway. In French: esprit dEscalier. It means that moment when you find the answer but its too late. So youre at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So, under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the partyAs you start down the stairway, then - magic. You come up with the perfect thing you shouldve said. The perfect crippling put down. Thats the Spirit of the Stairway. The trouble is, even the French dont have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.Chapter One, Guts

— Haunted Palahniuk novel art

To create a race of masters from a race of slaves, Mr. Whittier said, to teach a controlled group of how to create their own lives, Moses had to be an asshole.Chapter 3

— Haunted Palahniuk novel live

Its not a matter of right and wrong, Mr. Whittier would say. Really, there is no wrong. Not in our 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 right the moment you act.Chapter 4

— Haunted Palahniuk novel reality

What you have to love about drinking is, every swallow is an irrevocable decision. You charging ahead, in control if the game. It’s the same with pills, sedatives and painkillers, every swallow us a first definite step down some road.Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady

— Haunted Palahniuk novel love

A journalist has a right and a duty, to destroy the golden calves he helps create.Chapter 5, Trade Secrets, A Poem About the Earl of Slander

— Haunted Palahniuk novel poem

You are permanent, but this life is not, Mr. Whittier would say. You dont expect to visit an amusement park, then stay forever.Chapter 6

— Haunted Palahniuk novel life

The earth, hed say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. Thats your big answer. The big truth. Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. Thats the earth. Why it goes round. Were the rocks. And what happens to us--the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse--why, thats just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.Chapter 6

— Haunted Palahniuk novel truth

In the big factory of perfecting human souls, the Earth was a kind of tumbler. The same as the kind people use to polish rocks. All souls come here to rub the sharp edges off each other. All of us, were meant to be worn smooth by conflict and pain of every kind. To be polished. There was nothing bad about this. This wasnt suffering. It was erosion. It was just another, a basic, an important step in the refining process.Chapter 6

— Haunted Palahniuk novel art

Every apostle or disciple, Mrs. Clarke says, as much as their running to follow theyre savior-theyre running just as hard to escape something else.Chapter 8

— Haunted Palahniuk novel running

For the rest of history, all over the world, people will be trying to save this same dead woman. This woman who just wanted to die. Chapter 9, Exodus

— Haunted Palahniuk novel history

For the rest of history, all over the world, people will be trying to save this same dead woman. This woman who just wanted to die.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel history

You cant unfuck a kid. Once you fuck a kid, you cant get that genie back in the bottle.Chapter 9, Exodus

— Haunted Palahniuk novel you

This is just what human beings do-turn objects into people, people into objects. Back and forth. Tit for tat.Chapter 9, Exodus

— Haunted Palahniuk novel people

Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you. p205Chapter 11, Ritual

— Haunted Palahniuk novel time

What matters, Sister Vigilante says, is, people need a monster they can believe in. A true horrible enemy. A demon to define themselves against. Otherwise, its just us versus us.Chapter 13, Civil Twilight

— Haunted Palahniuk novel people

With the angel of death going door to door, people stayed together. They quit bitching and behaved.Chapter 13, Civil Twilight

— Haunted Palahniuk novel death

I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everythings all wrong again. p76

— Haunted Palahniuk novel happiness

The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors. p144

— Haunted Palahniuk novel people

Some stories, Mr.Whitter would say, you tell them and you use them up. Other stories, they use you up. p288

— Haunted Palahniuk novel stories

The whole idea of men creating perfect robot women for their own pleasure, it happens every day. The most beautiful women you see in public, none of them are for real. Theyre just men perpetuating their perverted stereotypes of women. Just the oldest story in the world. Theres a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel women

Leather shoes and fried chicken and dead soldiers are only a tragedy if you waste their gift sitting in front of the television. Or stuck in traffic. Or stranded at some airport.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel age

Some stories, shed say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel mind

I used to think the secret to a happy ending was to bring down the curtain at the exact right time. A moment after happiness, then everythings all wrong, again.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel happiness

Until you can ignore your circumstances, and just do as you promise, he says, youll always be controlled by the world.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel world

Her dress, swimsuit-tight, leotard-tight, her pantyhose run with women pedaling bicycles going nowhere at a thousand calories an hour.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel women

Stink for privacy, the new way to protect personal space. Intimidation by odor.Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady

— Haunted Palahniuk novel space

— Haunted Palahniuk novel women

Thats how a scary story works. It echoes some ancient fear. It recreates some forgotten terror. Something wed like to think were grown beyond. But it can still scare us to tears. Its something youd hoped was healed.Chapter 19, Hot Potting, A story by Baroness Frostbite

— Haunted Palahniuk novel hope

If theres a trick to doing a job you hate Mrs. Clark says its to find a job you hate even more.Chapter 20, Cassandra, Another story by Mrs. Clarke

— Haunted Palahniuk novel hate

Telling a story is how we digest what happens to us, Mr Whittier says, Its how we digest our lives. Our experiences.Chapter 21

— Haunted Palahniuk novel experience

If we can forgive whats been done to us If we can forgive what weve done to others If we can leave our stories behind. Our being victims and villains. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.Chapter 21

— Haunted Palahniuk novel world

People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel love

— Haunted Palahniuk novel people

The world will always punish the few people with special talents the rest of us don’t recognize as real.

— Haunted Palahniuk novel people

Share your thoughts on Haunted Palahniuk novel quotes with the community: