There's an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of work is done until you want to kill everyone involved in the publishing process, especially yourself.
Chuck PalahniukRead
I suppose it’s comfort, perhaps a sense of self-control, doing worse things to yourself than the world will ever dare inflict.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the idea that we often harm ourselves in ways that are harsher than what the outside world can do to us.
In this quote, Chuck Palahniuk suggests that individuals may find a twisted form of comfort in self-inflicted pain or harm, as it can provide a sense of control when external circumstances feel overwhelming. It highlights a psychological coping mechanism where a person chooses to subject themselves to worse treatment than they might face from others, revealing deeper issues of self-perception and resilience.
Themes
Self-ControlComfortPainSelf-HarmPsychology
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a mental health awareness campaign to illustrate self-destructive behaviors.
More from Chuck Palahniuk
All quotes →Griping isn't the same as creating something. Rebelling isn't rebuilding. Ridiculing isn't replacing. We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces.
Chuck PalahniukRead
If we can forgive what’s been done to us... If we can forgive what we’ve done to others... If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villains or victims. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.
Chuck PalahniukRead
We're all trapped. It's always 1734. All of us, we're stuck in the same time capsule, the same as those television shows where the same people are marooned on the same desert island for thirty seasons and never age or escape. They just wear more makeup. In a creepy way, those shows are maybe too authentic.
Chuck PalahniukRead
One thing I really envy about my friends who have kids is that as their children develop, they're able to revisit their own developmental stages and recognise themselves and undo a lot of things they decided.
Chuck PalahniukRead
If you knew that your life was merely a phase or short, short segment of your entire existence, how would you live? Knowing nothing 'real' was at risk, what would you do? You'd live a gigantic, bold, fun, dazzling life. You know you would. That's what the ghosts want us to do - all the exciting things they no longer can.
Chuck PalahniukRead
Similar quotes
Now all my teachers are dead except silence.
W. S. MerwinRead
Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.
Virginia SatirRead
I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.
Mahatma GandhiRead
I think [Transcendental Meditation] is what people need. They don't need high minded talk, they need results.
Paul MccartneyRead
Sometimes skulls are thick. Sometimes hearts are vacant. Sometimes words don't work.
James FreyRead
I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.
J. D. SalingerRead