Mary Gaitskill Quotes

Quotes about:

• My ambition was to live like music.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Music, Ambition, My Ambition

  Mary Gaitskill (2013). “Veronica”, p.33, Vintage

  47 Copy quote

• I think people try to make the most of their time on earth and also to fix their time on earth. They try to fix external verities, things that are true for all time, ideas that are true for all time: Rome will last forever! America will last forever! Beauty, as defined by the fashion industry, is one of those things—this is beautiful. This will always be beautiful—and hold it in a way that has some sense of permanence about it, and absoluteness. And yet it’s not.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Beautiful, Fashion, Thinking

  Interview with Sheila Heti, www.believermag.com. February 2009.

  27 Copy quote

• But now all the natural secrets have been exposed, and it is likely that the turtles have been sold to laboratory scientists who want to remove their shells so that they can wire electrodes to the turtles' skin in order to monitor their increasing terror at the loss of their shells.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Loss, Turtles, Order

  FaceBook post by Mary Gaitskill from Oct 30, 2011

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Writing, White, Feelings

  FaceBook post by Mary Gaitskill from May 15, 2012

  14 Copy quote

• The only way to know whats possible is to venture past impossible.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Past, Venture, Way

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• Of course there’s something there; unfortunately, there’s always something ‘there.’ Something you will one day be sorry you saw.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Sorry, One Day, Saws

  FaceBook post by Mary Gaitskill from Aug 18, 2011

  16 Copy quote

• You can teach people a lot about craft and various techniques, and you can certainly teach them to appreciate, but you cannot give them spirit or soul if it's not there.

  Mary Gaitskill

  People, Appreciate, Giving

  Interview with by Sheila Heti, believermag.com. February 1, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

• I think the closest thing I can come to defining what that vital thing is for me - is that there's a sort of soul-quality in writing, if it's any good. It has a spirit or an energy to it that is very integral to who the writer is on a deep level. It's almost a cellular thing. It takes place in the cells of the writing, and it is what makes it alive or not.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Writing, Thinking, Cells

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. February 1, 2009.

  10 Copy quote

• I think if a woman is very happy with herself and at ease with her choices, it goes a long way toward making other people feel at ease with her.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Thinking, Long, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• The best definition I've heard is that guilt is about what you've done, shame is about who you are. If something's out of my control, I don't feel shame about it, because what could I have done? If you're guilty, you can at least try to atone for it or make it better or not do it again. If it's who you are, you can't do much about it except change yourself, and that's pretty hard.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Guilt, Trying, Done

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. February 1, 2009.

  9 Copy quote

• The art of integrating the ego and the impulse for empathy in a dynamic call and response.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Art, Writing, Empathy

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Rejection, Advice, Lucky

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• When he held her that way, she felt so happy that it disturbed her. After he left, it would take her hours to fall asleep, and then when she woke up she would feel another onrush of agitated happiness, which was a lot like panic. She wished she could grab the happiness and mash it into a ball and hoard it and gloat over it, but she couldn't. It just ran around all over the place, disrupting everything.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Fall, Balls, Panic

  Mary Gaitskill (2012). “Because They Wanted To: Stories”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Horse, Children, Crazy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Mean, Voice

  Source: www.believermag.com

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Simple, Racism

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• There isn't going to be anyone to tell you what to do most of the time. It has to be your own decision and you have to learn to trust that, or learn that it's wrong. The hard truth is that there are people who believe they're writers and work hard at it and are sincere about it, but they don't make it. You have to be prepared for that possibility.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Believe, Hard Work, People

  Source: www.elle.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Nice, Thinking, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Uplifting, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I know several women my age who are really poor...because they spent most of their energy taking care of children.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Children, Age, Energy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Worried, Politically Correct

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• What are you thinking?” She asks. -That you are beautiful. That not everyone could see it. I almost became the kind of person who could not.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Beautiful, Thinking, Kind

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• 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.

  Mary Gaitskill

  Thinking, People, Different

  Source: www.elle.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Teacher

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Strong, Book

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. February 1, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

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