How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
For this moment, nothing matters. Look up into the stars and you're gone. Not your luggage. Nothing matters. Not your bad breath. (3.70)
Even early on in the novel, our narrator looks to the sky and yearns for a spiritual connection with the galaxy. He thinks that things people worry about a lot—like lost luggage and bad breath—are mundane worries that aren't worth our precious time.
Quote #2
You aren't alive anywhere like you're alive at fight club. (6.45)
Fight club allows a man to connect with his most primal emotions, like a primitive hunter stalking prey across uncivilized plains.
Quote #3
I was in the mood to destroy something beautiful. (16.50)
Our narrator wants to destroy things that society has deemed beautiful or precious, but don't necessarily have inherent value—like a man's handsome face or pandas. Why has society placed value in these things?
Quote #4
I wanted the world to hit bottom. (16.59)
Our narrator wants to apply Tyler's personal philosophy to the world as a whole. Would this work? Can the world bounce back from environmental destruction?
Quote #5
This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead. (16.68)
Our narrator doesn't want to pay for the mistakes of his predecessors, and he doesn't want to sacrifice anything to try to heal the damage previous generations have done to the planet. Can the world survive with this kind of selfishness?
Quote #6
You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. [...] We'll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what's left of mankind will retreat to empty zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against bears and big cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night. (16.72)
Project Mayhem's ultimate goal—a return to a primitive lifestyle—would be the ultimate equalizer. Everyone would have to learn to survive based on their own merits. Whether or not you agree with this, is Project Mayhem going about it in an effective way?
Quote #7
"You're not how much money you've got in the bank. You're not your job. You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself." (18.75)
Fight club and Project Mayhem do not believe in recognition and reward. It's all about personal accomplishment—the kind you can only achieve for yourself.
Quote #8
Up above me, outlined against the stars in the window, the face smiles. "Those birthday candles," [the mechanic] says, "they're the kind that never go out." (18.152)
The mechanic is showing us a contrast between something manmade (the birthday cake in the car) and the natural world (the stars in the sky). He, for one, places value on the stars. Which would you choose?
Quote #9
Other space monkeys move around in the garden, picking things, killing things. (23.5)
Just like the saying that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you can't make it through life without killing something. We create, we kill, we destroy. It may not have been in the Lion King, but it's all part of the circle of life.