I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing.

Meaning of the quote

The quote suggests that the author, Chuck Palahniuk, used to work in a funeral home to appreciate being alive. He felt grateful for the simple act of breathing, just by witnessing the finality of death at the funeral home. This helped him feel better about himself and appreciate his own life more.

About Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is an American novelist known for his transgressive fiction. He has published numerous novels, nonfiction books, graphic novels, and adult coloring books, with his debut novel ‘Fight Club’ being adapted into a popular film.

More about the author

More quotes from Chuck Palahniuk

People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were scared of being alone.

Chuck Palahniuk

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Every woman is just a different kind of problem.

Chuck Palahniuk

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Masochism is a valuable job skill.

Chuck Palahniuk

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If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up?

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Reality means you live until you die. The real truth is nobody wants reality.

Chuck Palahniuk

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Since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it’s the only way they can get anything really finished.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

I don’t care what they do with my book so long as the flippin check clears.

Chuck Palahniuk

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

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Our Generation has had no Great war, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. That’s the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Your birth is a mistake you’ll spend your whole life trying to correct.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

I just don’t want to die without a few scars.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

What we don’t understand we can make mean anything.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

More and more, it feels like I’m doing a really bad impersonation of myself.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

You must realize that one day you will die. Until then you are worthless.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

You are not a beautiful, unique snowflake… This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Where would Jesus be if no one had written the gospels?

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that’s usually how you end up crying?

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

It’s funny how you never think about the women you’ve had. It’s always the ones who get away that you can’t forget.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

That saying, about how you always kill the thing you love, well, it works both ways.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

The answer is there is no answer.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

If I can’t be beautiful, I want to be invisible.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Find out what you’re afraid of and go live there.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messed cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Sometimes the past seems too big for the present to hold.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist

Sometimes you do something, and you get screwed. Sometimes it’s the things you don’t do, and you get screwed.

Chuck Palahniuk

American novelist, essayist