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21 " Kids, she says. When they’re little, they believe everything you tell them about the world. As a mother, you’re the world almanac and the encyclopedia and the dictionary and the Bible, all rolled up together. But after they hit some magic age, it’s just the opposite. After that, you’re either a liar or a fool or a villain. "
― Chuck Palahniuk , Haunted
22 " Pretty much always. We need to tell the story of our life to someone. "
23 " You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time. "
24 " The air will always be to filled with something. Your body too sore or tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have some excuse not to live your life. "
25 " As young people we want something to slow us down and keep us trapped in one place long enough to look below the surface of the world. That disaster is a car crash or a war. To make us sit still. It can be getting cancer or getting pregnant. The important part is how it seems to catch us by surprise. That disaster stops us from living the life we'd planned as children - a life of constant dashing around. "
26 " An important part of building a new culture was allowing people to complain about their past. At first, the more they complained, the worse the past would seem. But by venting, people could start to resolve the past. By bitching and bitching and bitching, they could exhaust the drama of their own horror stories. Grow bored. Only then could they accept a new story for their lives. Move forward. "
27 " How can you possibly believe he really loves you?” Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier’s hand.“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved. "
28 " That’s how a scary story works. It echoes some ancient fear. It re-creates some forgotten terror. Something we’d like to think we’ve grown beyond. But it can still scare us to tears. It’s something you’d hoped was healed. "
29 " Going to work just looked crazy. Eating another meal, ever, made about as much sense as planting tulip bulbs in the shadow of a falling atom bomb. "
30 " We’d turn our lives into a terrible adventure. A true-life horror story with a happy ending. A trial we’d survive to talk about. "
31 " If there’s any trick to doing a job you hate . . . Mrs. Clark says it’s to find a job you hate even more. "
32 " They assume she was once gorgeously beautiful. Because now she looks so—bad. "
33 " Anything pretty,' Claire will tell you, 'it's only for sale because no one wants it. "
34 " In a city this size, every year, hundreds of husbands walk away. Kids leave home. Wives escape. People disappear. "
35 " Daytime television, you can tell who’s watching by the three kinds of commercials. Either it’s clinics for drying out drunks. Or it’s law firms who want to settle injury suits. Or it’s schools offering mail-order vocational degrees to make you a bookkeeper. A private detective. Or a locksmith. If you’re watching daytime television, this is your new demographic. You’re a drunk. Or a cripple. Or an idiot. "
36 " Some stories, she’d say, the more you tell them, the faster you use them up. Those kind, the drama burns off, and every version, they sound more silly and flat. The other kind of story, it uses you up. The more you tell it, the stronger it gets. Those kind of stories only remind you how stupid you were. Are. Will always be. "
37 " As the French say, who doesn't like getting their butt sucked? "
38 " You’re training a new employee,' says Mrs. Clark, 'to take over your boring old job.' When you raise a child. "
39 " We are all connected on the inside. Your ass is just the far end of your mouth. "
40 " You are permanent, but this life is not. "