Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk (233 pages)
In this collection of short stories, Palahniuk gathers and writes from all walks of life (including his own). Akin to the rest of his writing, the tales are at times odd, disturbing, difficult to read, yet also funny, sentimental, and even inspirational. The difference in this compilation is that the stories are true. We are presented with 23 nonfiction tales, nuggets of truth, that perhaps inspired his fiction works. In the introduction he also discusses a bit of his composing processes, as well as what it’s like to be a writer (of both fiction and nonfiction).
- “We used to go to church to reveal the worst aspects of ourselves, our sins. To tell our stories. To be recognized. To be forgiven. And to be redeemed, accepted back into our community. This ritual was our way to stay connected to people, and to resolve our anxiety before it could take is so far from humanity that we would be lost.
In these places I found the truest stories. In support groups. In hospitals. Anywhere people had nothing left to lost, that‘s where they told the most truth.” (pg. xix)
- “Alone. Together. Fact. Fiction. It’s a cycle.
Comedy. Tragedy. Light. Dark. They define each other.
It works, but only if you don’t get stuck too long in any one place.” (xxii)
- “This is your life, but processed. Hammered into the mold of a good screenplay. Interpreted according to the model of a successful box-office hit. It’s no surprise you’ve stared seeing every day in terms of another plot point. Music becomes your soundtrack. Clothing becomes costume. Conversation, dialogue. Our technology for telling stories becomes our language for remembering our lives. For understanding ourselves. Our framework for perceiving our world.” (29-30)
- “For the first time in history, five factors have aligned to bring about this explosion in storytelling. In no particular order the factors are:
Free time.
Technology.
Material.
Education.
And disgust.” (33)
- “Material. As more people grow old, with the experience of a lifetime to remember, the more they worry about losing it. All those memories. Their best formulas, stories, routines for making a dinner table burst into laughter. Their legacy. Their life. Just a touch of Alzheimer’s disease, and it could all disappear. Besides, all our best adventures seem to be behind us. So it feels good to relive them, to share them on paper.” (34)
- “In this way, learning to write means learning to look at yourself and the world in extreme close-up. If nothing else, maybe learning to write will force us to take a closer look at everything, to really see it—if only in order to reproduce it on a page.” (38)
- “The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you’ll realize you only ever lived on paper. Your adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room, masturbating and making money.” (56)
- “It’s interesting to note here, Carl Jung began to explore his subconscious by playing a building game with stones. Like a puzzle. Putting them together, he felt he was plunged into outer space, where he had visions that would shape the rest of his life.” (76)
- “As long as America has a frontier…there will be a place for America’s misfits and adventurers.” (98)
- “I wanted to build a picture of very unique words. Slang is the writer’s palette of colors.” (106)
- “First they turned to my friend Ina. Ina’s German and sensible. Her idea of expressing emotion is to light another cigarette.” (111) {I just love that description.}
- “‘What you exude, your sexuality is just a part of oneself. So a manufactured sex appeal…this is this American porn sex appeal which has nothing to do with sex. It’s like blowup dolls.’” (from feature on actress Juliette Lewis) (122)
- “The whole definition of a saint is somebody who lives as if they’re going to die tonight. A saint is so in touch with reality, with is of course our mortality, that he’s able to live at a different level of intensity.” (134)
- “‘That’s a big question: “Why are you alone?” I mean, we’re all alone. Aloneness is…that’s life. It’s the quality of our aloneness that matters. Whether it’s quality solitude.’” (136)
- “A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.” (143)
- “He [Marilyn Manson] says, ‘Strangely, although music is something to listen to, I think music listens back because there’s no judgments…. There’s not someone telling you what to believe in.’” (155)
- “‘That becomes the revolution,’ he says, ‘to be idealistic enough to think you can change the world, and what you find is you can’t change anything but yourself.’” (158)
- “The effect the study called ‘narcotization.’
When the problem looks too big, when we’re shown too much reality, we tend to shut down. We become resigned. We fail to take any action because disaster seems so inevitable. We’re trapped. This is narcotization.” (186)
- “Teaching experts say that, unless we have a moment of chaos, followed by the emotional release of realization, nothing will be remembered.” (191)
- “Stephen King once said that horror novels give us a chance to rehearse our deaths. The horror writer is like a Welsh ‘sin eater,’ who absorbs the faults of a culture and diffuses them, leaving the reader with less fear of dying.” (192)
- “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.” (205)
- “Beauty is a construct of culture. A mutually agreed upon standard.” (210)
- “The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard defines dread as the knowledge of what you must do to prove you’re free, even if it will destroy you….There is one rule he [Adam] can break, he must break, to prove his freedom, even if it destroys him. Kierkegaard says the moment we are forbidden to do something, we will do it. It is inevitable…. According to Kierkegaard, the person who allows the law to control his life, who says the possible isn’t possibly because it’s illegal, is leading an inauthentic life.” (213) {inspiration for Fight Club philosophies}
- “You can live Kierkegaard’s inauthentic life. Or you can make what Kierkegaard called your Leap of Faith, where you stop living as a reaction to circumstances and start living as a force for what you say should be.” (215)
- “Our physical bodies, I want to believe that they’re all just props. That life, physical life, is an illusion.
And I do believe it, but only for a moment at a time.” (219)
- “My brother-in-law used to call this behavior ‘brinksmanship,’ the tendency to leave things until the last moment, to imbue them with more drama and stress and appear the hero by racing the clock.” (220)
- “‘Where I was born,’ Georgia O’Keefe used to say, ‘and where and how I have lived is unimportant.’ She said, ‘It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.’” (220)
- “the predominant art form of our time: Note taking.” (222)
- “My filing system is my fetish…. No when the receipts pile up, the letters and contracts and whatnot, I close the blinds and put on a CD of rain sounds and file, file, file…. I’m organizing story ideas and odd facts….
I can file them. Someday, there will come a use for them. The way my father and grandfather lugged home lumber and wrecked cars, anything free or cheap with a potential future use, I now scribble down facts and figures and file them away for a future project.” (222-223)
- “According to Thamus, writing would allow humans to extend their memories and share information. But, more important, writing would allow humans to rely too much on these external means of recording. Our own memories would wither and fail. Our notes and records would replace our minds.” (224) {So true!}
- “Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler. You can laugh at anything from far enough away.” (229)
- “A reminder. Amazing reassuring proof that our anger, our disappointment, our striving and resentment unite us with each other, and now with the world.” (231) 2 years ago
