Top Mary Gaitskill Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Mary Gaitskill Biography

Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993, 2006, 2012), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998, 2008).

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Mary Gaitskill Quotes

I focus more on the spiritual or psychic gains.

Focus, Gains, Psychic, Spiritual

I think that politics in most people's lives expresses itself like that: indirectly, in half thought-out opinions and feelings. And sometimes through a connection with something that is very real. But we don't have the knowledge or language to speak about it.

Connection, Feelings, Language, Opinions, Real, Thinking

I think politics are a part of life, so I have no resistance to it, but it's not something I set out to do.

Thinking, Part, Resistance, Life, Politics, Think

I think a woman who commits adultery, is not sympathetic in our culture - or in many cultures, let's face it.

Adultery, Culture, Cultures, Face, Sympathetic, Thinking

I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take different looks as you get older, but it's something you keep coming back to. I've always been interested in the relationship between vulnerability and control. That's something that's a big thing for people, whoever they are, no matter how old you are. I think at different times, you're more aware than others.

Big, Different, Elements, People, Thinking, Vulnerability

When I was a kid, I did want to be a boy. I didn't like to play with dolls, and most of my friends were kind of sensitive, sissy boys. But as I got older, the mystique of being a girl began to interest me. It was confusing what sexuality was, and the responses of other people, but it didn't make me feel terrified or vulnerable.

Boys, Friends, Girl, Interest, Kids, Play

People tend to set themselves up in patterns; something happens, it hurts them, then something similar happens, and - it's happened again! It seems much bigger then, and they get worried and go through life looking for that thing, and because they're so concerned and looking for it, when anything that happens resembles that thing, they're sure it's happening again. So sometimes people think things are repeating even when they're not.

Happens, Hurt, Patterns, People, Similar, Thinking

Sexuality is a place where people are very vulnerable and can be experiencing and embodying very raw forces that they don't really understand and there's a question of how much you should control and how much you should play with those and what those forces really are, how you really feel about them. That's perennial.

Control, People, Perennial, Sexuality, Vulnerable

It's bizarre: I've tried to understand why people are into Trump. I really don't think I can. I don't think it's as simple as just racism. I do think there's a fear that white people have, even if they don't have a vicious desire to do harm to black people, they fear losing their top spot.

Simple, Thinking, Racism, People, Understand, Losing

I remember the time I said, 'I don't think you love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself. '

Learn, Love You, Needs, Remember, Think, Thinking

Death is a big theme in the book, illness. What is that? It's a fact that human beings - no matter who they are, no matter how healthy or strong or beautiful they are - are going to age and become weak and ugly by a certain standard, and die. And I think that's a terrifying idea for people to get their minds around.

Beautiful, Book, Fact, Idea, Strong

Even happy situations can easily start to feel miserable. So, I think that people who consider themselves sophisticated or who are in fact sophisticated have come to distrust stories that are uplifting or simply stories in which the characters get what they want in the end. Because in life, what you want is never the end.

Character, Happy, Miserable, Simply, Thinking, Uplifting

When you're writing a story, you're creating something of an artificial ending.

Artificial, Creating, Ending, Story, Writing

Writing is. . . . being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.

Feelings, Minds, Physicality, Tense, White, Writing

I think women who are very creative and giving members of society can be respected and accepted.

Thinking, Giving, Creative, Members, Society

I think, as we go through life, we can sometimes, while still staying essentially true to ourselves, pick up mannerisms or modes of expression that are like curlicues. And there was a lot of that that I recognized sometimes. And I remembered, sometimes dimly, why those phrases felt so tasty to me, why that particular curl felt so good to me. But from my point of view now, it was almost inaccurate. It changed the meaning of what I was saying in a way that it seemed like a distortion.

Thinking, Sometimes, Point Of View, Think, Pick, Phrases

People still think that a woman who doesn't have children or doesn't want children is really lacking in something. I've seen this over and over again in my life. I've had this thinking used against me repeatedly. I remember I had a therapist once, and I brought this up, and she said, "Well, I think women who don't have children feel very self-critical. They feel bad, so they think other people are critical in that way. "

Children, Thinking, People, Think, Seen, Critical

When my first book came out, it was very disorienting. My health went south. I didn't know how to relate to people. I thought, "Now I have this way to be in the world that's going to be wonderful. It'll be like driving a great car, really streamlined. " But it actually was difficult because, if you have a public persona, something you don't fully have control over, it's more like being in a car with controls you don't really understand.

Book, Car, Controls, People, Understand

I think, life is miserable.

Life, Miserable, Think, Thinking

She disapproved, but part of her seemed secretly to sympathize with the sickness. It was like she thought everybody had it, and the best you could do was to cover it up, and sometimes it would just come boiling out anyway. Then you had to point at it and condemn it, even though you knew you had it too.

Anyway, Boiling, Like, Part, Sickness, Sometimes

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