Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

"You know the old phrase 'Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it'? Well, I think those who remember their past are even worse off."

The theater of the mind. The bordello of the subconscious.

The minute something better than sex comes along, you call me.

... Nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

What I want is to be needed.
What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.

You want to know the real reason why I won't fuck you? <...> Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead.

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

The unreal is more powerful than the real.
Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it.

And if you don't see somebody every day, you see them change.

Then she turns on the television, some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.

And maybe men say they're glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that's just so much sour grapes. For sure, men can't do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses—any advantages men appear to have are pretty token.
You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus. Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise. The day men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.

There's an opposite to deja vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first.

The truth is, every son raised by a single mom is pretty much born married.

Sex pretty much cures everything.

People really need somebody they feel superior to. So stay downtrodden.

I'm not angry. I'm not sad. All I feel anymore is horny.