Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different

by Chuck Palahniuk

“For anything to endure it must be made of either granite or words.”

You and I never walk into the same room as each other. We each see the room through the lens of our own life. A plumber enters a very different room than a painter enters.

As Katherine Dunn put it, “No two people ever walk into the same room.”

Your body is a recording device more effective than your mind.

You see, a good story might leave everyone in awed silence. But a great story evokes similar stories and unites people. It creates community by reminding us that our lives are more similar than they are different.

You see, the secret is to trick yourself into having a great time. Whether you’re on a twenty-city book tour or washing dishes, find some way to love the task. In fact there’s a Buddhist saying told to me by Nora Ephron, the one-and-only time I met her after reading her work since college. At a noisy Random House party in the restaurant Cognac, she said, “If you can’t be happy while washing dishes, you can’t be happy.”