The collection / 85 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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02Undated

I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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03Undated

I suppose we'll never know what really happened in that room, though he did tell police, "I did it because I'm a dirty dog." This is not a very convincing alibi. He may as well have said, "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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04Undated

Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they're honest about everything.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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05Undated

But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one for this (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I'm going to blame John Cusack.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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06Undated

Women intrinsically understand human dynamics, and that makes them unstoppable. Unfortunately, the average man is less adroit at fostering such rivalries, which is why most men remain average; males are better at hating things that can't hate them back (e.g., lawnmowers, cats, the Denver Broncos, et cetera). They don't see the big picture.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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07Undated

There are two ways to look at life. The first view is that nothing stays the same and that nothing is inherently connected, and that the only driving force in anyone's life is entropy. The second is that everything pretty much stays the same (more or less) and that everything is completely connected, even if we don't realize it.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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08Undated

If rain is God crying, I think God is drunk and his girlfriend just slept with Zeus.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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09Undated

Real people are actively trying to live like fake people, so real people are no less fake. Every comparison becomes impractical. This is why the impractical has become totally acceptable; impracticality almost seems cool.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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10Undated

We are losing the ability to understand anything that's even vaguely complex.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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11Undated

There’s one kind of writing that’s always easy: Picking out something obviously stupid and reiterating how stupid it obviously is. This is the lowest form of criticism, easily accomplished by anyone. And for most of my life, I have tried to avoid this. In fact, I’ve spend an inordinate amount of time searching for the underrated value in ostensibly stupid things. I understand Turtle’s motivation and I would have watched Medelin in the theater. I read Mary Worth every day for a decade. I’ve seen Korn in concert three times and liked them once. I went to The Day After Tomorrow on opening night. I own a very expensive robot that doesn’t do anything. I am open to the possibility that everyting has metaphorical merit, and I see no point in sardonically attacking the most predictable failures within any culture.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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12Undated

We’re starting to behave as if we’ve reached the end of human knowledge. And while that notion is undoubtedly false, the sensation of certitude it generates is paralyzing.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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13Undated

Pundits are always blaming TV for making people stupid, movies for desensitizing the world to violence, and rock music for making kids take drugs and kill themselves. These things should be the least of our worries. The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy. There is no 'normal,' because everybody is being twisted by the same sources simultaneously.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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14Undated

I wake up, I feel the inescapable oppression of the sunlight pouring through my bedroom window, and I am struck by the fact that I am alone. And that everyone is alone. And that everything I understood seven hours ago has already changed, and that I have to learn everything again.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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15Undated

...because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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16Undated

Every night, we’re all having multiple metaphysical experiences, wholly constructed by our subconscious. Almost one-third of our lives happens inside surreal mental projections we create without trying. A handful of highly specific dreams, such as slowly losing one’s teeth, are experienced unilaterally by unrelated people in unconnected cultures. But these events are so personal and inscrutable that we’ve stopped trying to figure out what they mean.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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17Undated

It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box office star in America, because every straight girl I know would seel her soul to share a milkshake with that motherfucker.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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18Undated

....the increasingly common ideology that assures people they’re right about what they believe.... is, however, socially detrimental . It hijacks conversation and aborts ideas. It engenders a delusion of simplicity that benefits people with inflexible minds. It makes the experience of living in a society slightly worse than it should be.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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19Undated

The ultimate failure of the United States will probably not derive from the problems we see or the conflicts we wage. It will more likely derive from our uncompromising belief in the things we consider unimpeachable and idealized and beautiful. Because every strength is a weakness, if given enough time.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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20Undated

Sometimes I fantasize about the US head of state as a super-lazy, super-moral libertarian despot and think, “That would certainly make everything easier,” even though I can’t think of one person who’d qualify, except maybe Willie Nelson.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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21Undated

When exactly did every housewife in America become a whore?

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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22Undated

TV takes away our freedom to have whatever thoughts we want. So do photographs, movies, and the Internet. They provide us with more intellectual stimuli, but they construct a lower, harder ceiling.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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23Undated

It's nice to think that the weirdos get to decide what matters about the past, since it's the weirdos who care the most.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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24Undated

History is defined by people who don’t really understand what they are defining.

Chuck Klosterman / quote

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