Fight Club starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton was released in 1999 and became a definite classic for lots of younger viewers. The movie is a virtual mine of quotes about life and our place within a modern world that can rob us of our humanity. For this article I selected some of my favorite quotes from the movie and wrote about what lessons we all can derive for them to perhaps live a more fulfilling life. While these aren’t all of the great quotes from the movie I think they all encompass its themes and if you have never seen the film I highly recommend that you do so as soon as possible. "What kind of dining room set *defines* me as a person?"
We often put too much stock into inconsequential things. Are you going to let material things define who you are or are you going to be the one who defines who you are? When thinking about purchasing something try to calculate the true costs. How many hours of work did you have to put in to be able to buy it? Do you really need it? Is having a different plate to eat off of going to make a substantial difference in your life? Try cutting some things and see how much more freedom you have at the very least you'll have more money in your pocket.
I want you to hit me as hard as you can.
You can't be afraid to take a hit and it doesn't necessarily have to mean get punched in the face like Tyler Durden. It can be a simply mean putting yourself in situations where you don't have a lot of experience to rely on and be able to learn on the fly. When that punch hits you you can either stay down or take it as a wake up call and move forward.
Fuck off with your sofa units and string green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.
Once again don’t get caught up in the things in life that aren’t important. You don’t need to live for impressing other people with the things that you have accumulated or purchase you feel compelled to make. Stop trying to control so much and let things happen.
Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.
In the movie the convenience store clerk Raymond will experience this beautiful day because Tyler made him fear for his life. I know that I never want to put myself in that position but experiencing the kind of joy Raymond will feel each day would be nice. Perhaps the only way to get there is to keep perspective on the bigger picture of life and try to stop worrying about the day to day nonsense that comes along with society. Learn to let go of things because ultimately they are not important.
Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!
I think that we can take two things away from this quote. First, be yourself no matter what and secondly if you’re not living the way that you want to live stop blaming others and accept that you are much of the cause.
First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die.
As Marcus Aurelius wrote, “About death: whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either extinction or change.” Accepting your own mortality can be freeing and while it definitely isn’t an easy thing to do it may be necessary to truly wake each and every one of us up.
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
This is an important quote about inner conflict and not living up to the image of yourself that you hold within your mind. The narrator and Tyler’s relationship with each other is revealed and it is clear that he represents the perfect self for the narrator. What is the person in your head really like? Is that person you want to be a real possibility? Could you actually work hard and make yourself into that person? If so what are you doing to make yourself into something better? If it isn’t something you can change about yourself why not learn to accept your limitations?
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.
The consumer culture we live in is a major theme within Fight Club. Once we as a people had our basic needs taken care of have our lives gotten better with the more and more stuff we pile up? Take a look in your closet and look at all of the clothes you own that used to be great when you bought them and now are no longer something you’d wear. Remember when that VCR was the hot new item that brought you endless entertainment? It’s not so much that these new things don’t bring us some form of utility but often times the things we buy is just overkill. We chase products instead of focusing on ways to make our lives better. We go into debt to fund short bursts of fun and after a month or two of that new TV it doesn’t seem that spectacular anymore, it’s just another thing. Our lifestyles are unsustainable and on average not all that fulfilling so maybe it’s time to take it upon ourselves to change.
