Chuck Klosterman Quotes
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Coldplay songs deliver an amorphous, irrefutable interpretation of how being in love is supposed to feel, and people find themselves wanting that feeling for real. They want men to adore them like Lloyd Dobler would, and they want women to think like Aimee Mann, and they expect all their arguments to sound like Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. They think everything will work out perfectly in the end (just like it did for Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Nick Hornby's Rob Fleming), and they don't stop believing because Journey's Steve Perry insists we should never do that.
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It doesn't matter what you can do if you don't know why you're doing it.
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I look at camping the same way I look at horror movies. All the years that humans fought to get into caves and into shelters - it almost seems sacrilegious to go outside and sleep without a roof. We work so hard to have these things!
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People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.
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Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless.
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The Joker was Batman's nemesis, but-ironically-his archenemy was Superman, since Superman made Batman entirely mortal and generally nonessential. Nobody likes to admit this, but Batman fucking hated Superman; Superman is the reason Batman became an alcoholic.
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The satisfaction you feel from your own success pales in comparison to the despair you feel from this person's personal triumphs, even if those triumphs are completely unrelated to your life.
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The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books. When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing.
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I write pretty fast, probably faster than most people. But I might think about something for six hours, then write it in 20 minutes. So did I write for six hours and 20 minutes, or just 20 minutes? I used to write absolutely every day, except for days when I had to travel or something.
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Different critics go to different lengths to disagree with that sentiment, but ultimately, they're the person experiencing this art, and whatever judgment or taste they use is internal, and says more about them than about the record they're writing about.
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Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me.
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I love the way music inside a car makes you feel invisible; if you plan the stereo at max volume, it's almost like the other people can't see into your vehicle. It tints your windows, somehow.
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Every time you talk to this person, you lie.
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Within the context of life, I am the centrist pragmatist who doesn't even vote; within the context of sports, I am a potential war criminal.
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Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.
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You and this person once competed for the same woman, and you both failed.
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This is the kind of shit that would prompt Tyler Durden to hit somebody in the face.
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If you move furniture all day, if you're a construction worker, if you have a job that's real physical, this idea that there is a sport that involves the kind of conventional, traditional view of toughness, you see that still as a positive thing.
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The strength of your memory dictates the size of your reality.
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Instead, we were given a publication called the Weekly Reader, which was like a newspaper for four-foot illiterates.
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Nine Inch Nails were the best and most popular industrial band of all time; as a consequence, industrial purists usually assert that Nine Inch Nails aren't an industrial band at all (this is a counterintuitive phenomenon that tends to occur with purists from all subcultures, musical or otherwise).
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If you play "I Don't Want To Know" by Fleetwood Mac loud enough -- you can hear Lindsey Buckingham's fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. ...And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song.
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This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.
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But the bottom line is that I am still willing to die a painful public death, assuming my execution destroys the game of soccer (or - at the very least - convinces people to shut up about it).