Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

This book left me with so many questions. But I'm also left satisfied with the way it ended. Something that usually doesn't go hand-in-hand.

This was my first Palahniuk book. It's not something I would have reached for on my own, but it was recommended to me, and after hearing what it was about, I was curious. To be honest, the format of the book was what got me interested. It's an oral biography. So it's short interviews, going back and forth between several different people. The person who the biography is about, Rant Casey, is dead and you never hear from him or actually know who he is. You just know what people believe him to be.

Of course, this book isn't for everyone. It has strong language, and can be hard to follow at times with all the different characters. But the way Palahniuk writes the things people think but are too afraid to say is refreshing and honest. I couldn't put the book down. The fact that I liked this particular book of his so much, makes me hesitate to read another one of his. I'm afraid I will be left disappointed. If you have read any of his other books, please let me know what I should read from him next!

You can get this book for $11.17. It'll be like nothing you've read before.

Favorite Quotes:

• "And a few inhales later, Chet Casey shakes his head, and in that gesture I'm not sure who's really pacing who. Which of us sat which way first. If maybe this shitkicker is studying me. Copying me. Finding my hot buttons and building rapport. Maybe selling me something, this living legend Chet Casey, he winks. Never breathing more than fifteen inhales any minute. He tosses back the scotch. 'Anyway you look at it,' he says, and elbows me in the ribs, 'it's still a damn sweet deal on an airplane ticket.'"

• "Those stars, the same old hand-me-down stars as folks still wish on now. Tonight's moon, the exact same moon as back then."

• "Not just young, but pretty the way you look when your face goes smooth, the skin around your eyes and lips relaxed, the pretty you only look when you love the person taking the picture."

• "We all have this moment, when your folks first see you as someone not growing up to be them."

• "Irene told time by the flowers in bloom. First crocus, then tulips, forget-me-nots, marigolds, snapdragons, roses, day lilies, black-eyed susans, and sunflowers. The spinach, then the radishes, the lettuce, and the early carrots. To Chester Casey, one week equaled time to mow the grass. One hour meant time to move a lawn sprinkler. We all live by different clocks and calendars."

• "In my classroom, I tried to impress on the students that reality is a consensus. Objects, from diamonds to bubble gum, only have value because we all agree they do. Laws like speed limits are only laws because most people agree to respect them. I tried to argue that their gold was worth infinitely more than the junk they wanted to trade for, but it was like watching Native Americans sell their tribal lands for beads and trinkets."

• "A child who is never coached with Santa Claus may never develop an ability to imagine. To him, nothing exists except the literal and tangible. A child who is disillusioned abruptly, by his peers or siblings, being ridiculed for his faith and imagination, may choose never to believe anything - tangible or intangible - again. To never trust or wonder. But a child who relinquishes the illusions of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, that child may come away with the most important skill set. That child may recognize the strength of his own imagination and faith. He will embrace his own authority. He determines the nature of his world. His own vision. And by doing so, by the power of his example, he determines the reality of the other two types: those who can't imagine and whose who can't trust."

• "History is, Buster Casey was the kind of mistake a girl needs to make while she's still young enough to recover."

• "Something the wealthy know that most people don't is that you never burn a bridge. Such a waste. Instead, you sell it."

• "All these fat, middle-aged dumbshits just want something to kill time. Nothing dark and edgy or challenging. Nothing artsy. Just so long as it's got a happy ending."

• "Rant goes, 'Really truly with her whole entire heart, does Echo hate somebody?' I go, doesn't Rant mean 'love'? And Rant just shrugs and says, 'Ain't it the same thing?'"

• "Money you don't work to earn, you spend very quickly."

• "The aphasia, when I struggle for words, that's a little put-on. I'll pretend the last word in a sentence is almost choking me to... and I'll pause... death. Like I can't quite force out the right... word. That tension makes people really listen to me."

• "My world kept collapsing down, getting smaller and smaller."

• "People you love will die. Nothing you treasure will last forever. And I need to accept and embrace that fact."

• "I mean, a drunk driver doesn't care that you've been painting for years and your first gallery show opens next week. How bogus is that? The fifteen-hundred-pound elk, the one standing in the shadows at the edge of the road, ready to jump, it has no idea that your baby is due next week. The greasy brake linking or the cell-phone talker... The loose lug nuts or drowsy truck driver... It doesn't matter for crap that you've got three years of sobriety or that you finally look good in a two-piece bathing suit or you've met that perfect someone and you've fallen deeply, wildly, passionately in love. Today, as you pick up your dry cleaning, fax those reports, fold your laundry, or wash the dinner dishes, something you'd never expect is already stalking you."

• "Here's one night when I control the chaos. I participate with the doom I can't control. I'm dancing with the inevitable, and I survive."

• "The joy occurs when, with one nudge or scrape, that enemy vehicle bursts open to reveal stamp collectors, football fans, mothers, grandfathers, chimney sweeps, restaurant cooks, law clerks, ministers, teachers, ushers, ditch diggers, Unitarians, Teamsters, bowlers, human beings. Hidden inside that hard, polished paint and glass is another person just so soft and scared as you."

• "It's funny, what you remember about a person."

• "... What if reality is nothing but some disease?"

• "In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display."

• "The government says Rant's alive because they need a villain. The kids say he's alive because they need a hero."

• "Maybe this is how any religious figure gets created - his friends brag him up, huger and huger, so they can get laid. You can picture St. Peter in a bar telling some pretty girl, 'Yeah, I hung with Jesus Christ. We were best buds...'"

• "You could say I constantly fuck up the past, the present, and the future."