Chuck Palahniuk

"Every apostle or disciple," Mrs. Clarke says, "as much as they're running to follow their savior-they're running just as hard to escape something else."

"Until you can ignore your circumstances, and just do as you promise," he says, "you'll always be controlled by the world."

Her dress, swimsuit-tight, leotard-tight, her pantyhose run with women pedaling bicycles going nowhere at a thousand calories an hour.

"What matters," Sister Vigilante says, "is, people need a monster they can believe in." A true horrible enemy. A demon to define themselves against. Otherwise, it's just us versus us.

Some stories, Mr.Whitter would say, you tell them and you use them up. Other stories, they use you up. p288

"Every apostle or disciple," Mrs. Clarke says, "as much as their running to follow they're savior-they're running just as hard to escape something else."

You can't unfuck a kid. Once you fuck a kid, you can't get that genie back in the bottle.

The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. That's your big answer. The big truth. Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes round. We're the rocks. And what happens to us--the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse--why, that's just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.

"We should forgive God..."

According to Mona, you shouldn't kill people, because that drives you away from humanity. In order to justify killing, you have to make the victim your enemy. To justify any crime, you have to make the victim your enemy.

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.

I need to rebel against myself. It's the opposite of following your bliss. I need to do what I most fear.