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
Beginning with Santa Claus as a cognitive exercise, a child is encouraged to share the same idea of reality as his peers. Even if that reality is patently invented and ludicrous, belief is encouraged with gifts that support and promote the common cultural lies. The greatest consensus in modern society is our traffic systems. The way a flood of strangers can interact, sharing a path, almost all of them traveling without incident. It only takes one dissenting driver to create anarchy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the nature of belief and consensus in society, highlighting how shared illusions can maintain order.
Chuck Palahniuk's quote delves into how children are taught to believe in constructs like Santa Claus, illustrating the broader theme of societal consensus. It draws a parallel between these shared deceptions and real-world systems, like traffic management, where each individual's adherence to societal rules prevents chaos. Yet, it cautions that even a single dissenter can disrupt this fragile order, prompting reflection on the implications of conformity and the nature of reality itself.
Themes
BeliefConsensusSocietyRealityChaos
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on social constructs, this quote can illustrate how belief systems shape our daily lives.
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
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
Francis BaconRead
Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
There's this romantic idea that's built up around war. But the pragmatic view is there are tons of people of my generation who have lost their lives, lost their marriages, or lost their health as a consequence of being sent to wars which could have been avoided.
Pete ButtigiegRead
Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.
Ramana MaharshiRead
My space chums think my unique hookup with humanity could be evolution's awkward attempt to jump-start itself up again. They're thinking just maybe, going crazy could be the evolutionary process trying to hurry up mind expansion. Maybe my mind didn't snap. Maybe it was just trying to stretch itself into a new shape. The cerebral cortex trying to grow a thumb of sorts.
Lily TomlinRead
Because the question for me was always whether that shape we see in our lives was there from the beginning or whether these random events are only called a pattern after the fact. Because otherwise we are nothing.
Cormac MccarthyRead