Twisted

“Before we left, I found one of the doctors who helped me and quietly asked him to slit my throat. The guy said no and suggested I talk to my family doc about antidepressants.”

This quote is the first reference to Tyler’s suicidal ideation, a recurrent theme throughout the novel. 

“Miller men were disciplined. Miller men followed rules. Miller men toughed it out; they ate dirt and went for the kill.”

In this quote, Tyler is recalling what his father told him about being a man when Tyler was just eight years old. Ever since then, Tyler has not felt like a “real” man. 

“Days like this I thought maybe I should just blow off school, move to Minnesota or something, get a job that let me sweat, and never, ever think again.”

This quote references the comfort Tyler has experienced through physical labor, which provides a distraction and a way to work off natural aggression. This is also the first time Minnesota appears in the novel; it will come up again later, when Tyler is trying to decide how to deal, or not deal, with negative parts of his life.