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" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Feel
Remember
Children
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" If anything is scary about my writing, it's that it's the product of a very particular vision and doesn't reference common speech that heavily. By 'common speech,' I don't mean language as much as an agreed-on way of seeing, or a shorthand. "
Mary Gaitskill
Writing
Language
Way
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Off
Down
Turn
" I believe that the truest parts of people can be buried, and for many different reasons. "
Mary Gaitskill
Different
People
I Believe
" I didn't want to keep forcing myself to grind out book after book. "
Mary Gaitskill
Want
Myself
Keep
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Think
Television
Picture
" Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments. "
Mary Gaitskill
Moments
Most
Stories
" I feel I'm often misunderstood by critics. People project a lot or exaggerate the subjective fragility simply because it's frightening to them. "
Mary Gaitskill
Misunderstood
Feel
Project
" Between my hatred of mall shopping and my mother's firm ideas about how a girl should dress, my style choices were pretty unenthusiastic: plaid skirts or whatever empire-waisted thingamabob was on sale at Sears. "
Mary Gaitskill
Dress
Girl
Style
" 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
" One hot summer night in San Francisco, roughly 10 years ago, I was sitting in a crowded Pacific Heights restaurant when Alice Adams walked in with a man. She was about 60 at the time, and she was wearing a skirt that fell an inch or so above her knees and flat heels without stockings. "
Mary Gaitskill
Time
Summer
Restaurant
" 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
Me
" I didn't start thinking about what I wanted to do professionally until I was 17. I was a hippie, but I did write. "
Mary Gaitskill
Thinking
Write
Start
" When looking out the window and watching the water becomes a drama, then literally everything is a drama. "
Mary Gaitskill
Watching
Drama
Looking
" What is faithfulness, anyway? Can you be unfaithful to your own feelings and faithful to someone else? Is it faithful to lie in bed night after night with someone you love but no longer desire while ardently dreaming of someone else? "
Mary Gaitskill
Lie
Desire
You
" I wasn't ever anybody who had a political thing against marriage, but I just thought, 'Why would I want to do that?' "
Mary Gaitskill
Political
Marriage
Why
" I think that's the real reason, sometimes, that people talk about my stories as being scary, because if you compare what goes on in my stories to what goes on in popular movies and popular songs, it's very mild. "
Mary Gaitskill
Sometimes
People
Movies
" I think it actually started in my late thirties. I started changing psychologically, and it was difficult to translate that into my writing. "
Mary Gaitskill
Think
Writing
Late
" Monogamy is desirable for many reasons, especially in creating a stable, emotionally connected home for children. But judging from centuries of human behavior, it is also a very difficult standard to meet. "
Mary Gaitskill
Behavior
Children
Home
" A sad person who is so involved with his sadness that he mistakes it for reality will have a hard time seeing himself as anything but sad. For him, the sadness is not a feeling that he experiences - it is him. "
Mary Gaitskill
Time
Mistakes
Reality
" Anne Frank's diary made a very big impression on me at age 12 or so. "
Mary Gaitskill
Impression
Big
Age
" At 16, I was in Toronto and very shy and not hanging around with anyone who was intellectual in the slightest, so I didn't really have the means to discuss what I was seeing and feeling. "
Mary Gaitskill
Seeing
Shy
Who
" I had a strong conviction that there was something out there in the world that was wonderful. "
Mary Gaitskill
World
Strong
Conviction
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Writing
Behavior
People
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Identity
Gone
Imagination
" Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially. "
Mary Gaitskill
Writing
Sometimes
Need
" It's true that your environment influences how you write. "
Mary Gaitskill
Environment
How
Your
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Feel
Fear
Need
" I've noticed women my age and a little younger, anywhere from 35 to 50, saying, 'Who would want to bring kids into a world like this?' Or, 'I don't want to spend my life that way. I want to do my artwork.' And they're very unapologetically stating this. "
Mary Gaitskill
Saying
World
Women
" My first and strongest memories about perfume come from childhood, from my mother, and they are a complex blend of her private and public selves. "
Mary Gaitskill
Perfume
Childhood
Mother
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Fashion
Beautiful
She