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I think people hold back all kinds of things. And in a way, they just want to be nice. They want to be civil.
Mary Gaitskill
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Mary Gaitskill
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: November 11
Author
Novelist
Writer
Lexington
Kentucky
Hold
Nice
Back
Kind
Things
Think
Thinking
Civil
People
Kinds
More quotes by Mary Gaitskill
I don't have an opinion about whether or not politics should appear more in fiction or not, generally. I think politics are a part of life, but a part of life that most people don't think about very much, most of the time. Or, people think about it superficially and they talk about it superficially because they don't know very much.
Mary Gaitskill
Adultery is like, here's the way it is, and here's exactly what you're supposed to do. It's like cheating at Monopoly. For me, it just doesn't apply to human relations. I mean, I use the word sometimes because it's fair and everybody knows what it means, but I find it a very irritating word.
Mary Gaitskill
I remember the time I said, 'I don't think you love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself.'
Mary Gaitskill
The hurts of childhood that must be avenged: so small and so huge.
Mary Gaitskill
Human beings look so different from each other, voices are so different, everything about us is so individual, and that's so exciting and juicy and appealing, and we're attached to these things and they're so fascinating and beautiful - I don't just mean model-beautiful, but all the individual forms that people can take.
Mary Gaitskill
I think women who are very creative and giving members of society can be respected and accepted.
Mary Gaitskill
I can be very in my head, but I don't trust my head all that much. My head is crazy. My head will talk to itself all day and all night if I let it. And my heart is less nutty, but it's kind of like an overexcited child. I don't trust my heart all that much either. My body is like a good horse. I trust my body.
Mary Gaitskill
When you approach the second half of your life, you start to unconsciously consider what you're passing on. As a writer, that's obviously part of what you're doing. And as a teacher, that's another way of passing on information, history, or whatever you have.
Mary Gaitskill
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.
Mary Gaitskill
When you're writing a story, you're creating something of an artificial ending.
Mary Gaitskill
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.
Mary Gaitskill
I became very aware of how important it is to connect with children - possibly for the children, if they're in the mood for that - but certainly for the adults.
Mary Gaitskill
My ambition was to live like music.
Mary Gaitskill
If I'm meeting somebody for the first time, I don't look them up on Wikipedia, or I try not to, because I would not want somebody to be thinking they knew me based on that. It's like even private citizens have to deal with this persona phenomenon.
Mary Gaitskill
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.
Mary Gaitskill
I focus more on the spiritual or psychic gains.
Mary Gaitskill
Whenever young writers ask me for advice, I always say you have to be able to take a lot of rejection because, unless you're very lucky, that's what's going to happen.
Mary Gaitskill
The art of integrating the ego and the impulse for empathy in a dynamic call and response.
Mary Gaitskill
I know several women my age who are really poor...because they spent most of their energy taking care of children.
Mary Gaitskill
He had lunch with Cecilia that afternoon. They ate their corned beef on rye and cream cheese with lox in a diner peopled by waiters who looked like they´d met with utter disappointment and become attached to it.
Mary Gaitskill
