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" I don't think that the Internet creates feelings that aren't there, nor does it provide an outlet. On the contrary, what I have thought about things like computer games - what has disturbed me about them - is that they appear to stimulate feelings of aggression without providing any physical release. "

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" On the rare occasions when my mother perfumed herself, she was going out, and so I rarely smelled those special scents up close on her body, except during kisses goodbye. "

Mary Gaitskill

Mother

Her

Goodbye

" I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer. "

" I had really wanted adventure. At the time that I ran away, lots of kids ran away from home. It was something of a social phenomenon. "

" I didn't start thinking about what I wanted to do professionally until I was 17. I was a hippie, but I did write. "

" The two basic social identities were Normal and Greaser; although a few sophisticated girls wore peace signs, hippies didn't exist, and while a seminal punk band, Iggy and the Stooges, was playing in nearby Ann Arbor, punk didn't exist yet, either. "

" I believe that the truest parts of people can be buried, and for many different reasons. "

" I found the world extraordinarily strange, having first left home at 15. "

" When I was writing 'Bad Behavior,' I was very, very quiet. I would just sit there and listen to people. And if I was out in public, I was usually quiet, and people tended to assume I was stupid because I was a young, pretty girl who's quiet. "

" 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. "

" The first person to blow up my fashion consciousness was a 14-year-old girl named Sandrine. She was the most beautiful human I had ever seen. "

" Where I grew up, in the Detroit area, there was a really good station. Sometimes you would hear songs for the first time on the radio, and if a really special song came on, somebody would turn it up, and everybody would just stop talking. "

" For two people to satisfy everything each needs for their entire lives is a tall order. Some couples may be equipped to do this. Some are not. "

" People say that if you talk too much about sex, you take away the mystery. I say, if you're somebody who likes to talk, talk all you want - it's not listening. You will never take away the mystery. "

" I remember back in the '90s, I used to feel criticized by women for not having children. Like there must be something wrong with me. "

" Having watched television, I would kind of play the role or picture myself on a television show or something like that. That's maybe always been true of a certain type of kid, even before television maybe, but I think it's been amplified to an insane level. "

" You can't tell an 18-year-old to keep it down and turn off Britney Spears or whatever it is that they listen to. "

" Somebody once said to me, 'If you want to be understood, don't write fiction.' "

" I didn't like horses when I was a kid. "

Mary Gaitskill

Kid

Horses

" It's true that your environment influences how you write. "

" I think a lot of writing, or a lot of young writers, especially, hold themselves back unnecessarily because they're so upset about the idea that they might be sentimental or so concerned about being criticized that way or even being that way that they just shy away from any strong expression or emotion. "

" Perhaps it should be obvious: Adultery is a social threat that arouses raw anger and fear, which the bellicose then need to discharge rather than merely feel, traditionally on the philandering wife or the female home-wrecker. "

" Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally. "

Mary Gaitskill

People

Exercise

" It's scary to me to watch the world around us get less and less physical while in the imaginary world of pop culture, aggressive impulses and fear reactions are floridly, furiously stoked and indulged. "

Mary Gaitskill

World

Scary

" Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments. "

" I don't know if I can say exactly what I seek in books, but one of them would be to deepen and expand my understanding of the world. "

" People sometimes turn out to be almost the opposite of how they present. It isn't because they're trying to fool you or because they're hypocrites. It's because they badly want to be that thing, and so they'll try to be it. "

" Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially. "

" Not being locked into one set of feelings, which you run the risk of mistaking for the truth, you have greater and more intense access to all feeling states, including those you would never choose to act out. "

" I feel I'm often misunderstood by critics. People project a lot or exaggerate the subjective fragility simply because it's frightening to them. "

" The appeal of perfume is that it is at once ephemeral and empowering. It creates a shimmering invisible armor that lingers in a room long after its wearer has gone and infuses our imagination with a subtle power, hinting at a hidden identity. "