"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."
— Edgar Allan Poe

"Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting."
— Paul Monette

"After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
— Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman)

"The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning."
— Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four)

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
— Khalil Gibran

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;"
— Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

"Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?
"
— Khalil Gibran

"For sure, they don't teach you this in history class, but in colonial times, the person who got left in the stocks overnight was nothing less than fair game for everybody to nail. Men or women, anybody bent over had no way of knowing who was doing the ram job, and this was the real reason you never wanted to end up here unless you had a family member or a friend who'd stand with you the whole time. To protect you. To watch your ass, for real."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)

"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)

"For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."
— 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)

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. "
— Charles Bukowski

"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)

"I restore myself when I'm alone."
— Marilyn Monroe

"I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!"
— Charles Bukowski

"Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
— Mark Twain

"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
— Harlan Ellison

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so?
There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."
— Drew Carey

"I'm loved by some, hated by many, envied by most, yet wanted by all. (Josiah)"
— Sherrilyn Kenyon

"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends."
— John Churton Collins

"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Love and Doubt are not on speaking terms
"
— Kahlil Gibrán