"Let me tell you a few things about regret...There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?"
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

"She was wearing the same clothes, but now she looked haggard and dirty. The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain."
— Hunter S. Thompson (The Rum Diary: A Novel)

"Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear."
— Hunter S. Thompson (Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century)

"I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. My father taught me that, along with a few other things that have kept my life interesting."
— Hunter S. Thompson (Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century)

"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
— Hunter S. Thompson

"There may be flies on you and me, but there are no flies on Jesus."
— Hunter S. Thompson

"We can't stop here, this is bat country!"
— Hunter S. Thompson

"Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…"
— Hunter S. Thompson (Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century)

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
— Tom Robbins

"All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously"
— Robbins Tom

"If by the quarter of the twentieth century godliness wasn’t next to something more interesting than cleanliness, it might be time to reevaluate our notions of godliness."
— Tom Robbins

"Does koala bear poop smell like cough drops?"
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"Plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate resposne to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure."
— Tom Robbins

"The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

"The trick is this: keep your eye on the ball. Even when you can't see the ball."
— Tom Robbins

"You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans."
— Tom Robbins

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. "
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"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 (Diary)

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"The things you own end up owning you."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"Parents are like God because you wanna know they're out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"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

"...the only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"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.
Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.
This is all practice."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"The only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor: A Novel)

"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?"
— Chuck Palahniuk

"In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey)

"What we don't understand we can make mean anything."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)

"The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"...hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"We'll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Most times, it's just a lot easier not to let the world know what's wrong."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Give me lust, baby.

Flash.
Give me malice.
Flash.
Give me detached existentialist ennui.
Flash.
Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashion makeovers that only leave me trapped being me.
Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am.
What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?"
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"Just keep asking yourself: What would Jesus not do?"
— Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)

"Make me into anything, but just love me."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!
- Tyler Durden"
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"I am an invisible monster, and I am incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"...the idea that I can't share my problems with other people makes me not give a shit about their problems."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)