"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)

"Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy."
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

"Worker bees can leave.
Even drones can fly away.
The Queen is their slave."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened. "
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

"I thought about how odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people. The only activities I could think of that humans do that have no animal equivalent were smoking, body-building and writing. That's not much, considering how special we seem to think we are."
— Douglas Coupland

"I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs. "
— Douglas Coupland (The Gum Thief: A Novel)

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"Don't Panic"
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"One a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

""When you think about it, Johnny Appleseed was a fucking ecological terrorist""
— Chuck Palahniuk

"This is fish number six hundred and forty-one in a lifetime of goldfish. My parents bought me the first one to teach me about loving and caring for another living breathing creature of God. Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

"The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing and so she won't commit to anything."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"First your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life"
— Chuck Palahniuk

"My mother is a fish."
— William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)

"TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public."
— Douglas Coupland (JPod)

"In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week. "
— Douglas Coupland

""When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun -- that "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays -- whenever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, 'Well then, exactly what was it I was having -- that interlude -- the scrambly madness -- all that time I had before?' ""
— Douglas Coupland (Life After God)

"O snail
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly!"
— Kobayashi Issa

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
— Aldous Huxley

"I would prefer not to."
— Herman Melville (Bartleby The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street)

"Any love that is love is right."
— Francesca Lia Block (Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books)

""just then a bee bumbled above us and stole our attention the way flying things can""
— Douglas Coupland

"If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, doesn't it just lay there and rot?"
— Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)

"We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"Science is magic that works."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle)

"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"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)

"And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't."
— Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others."
— Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time)

"People are never perfect, but love can be. "
— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

"If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five)