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" I think people try to make the most of their time on Earth and also to 'fix' their time on Earth. "
Mary Gaitskill
Time
Think
People
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" 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
Me
Exercise
" Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially. "
Mary Gaitskill
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Sometimes
Need
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Truth
Feeling
Feelings
" 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
" 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 wanted to communicate and connect. I simply didn't seem able to do it. "
Mary Gaitskill
Able
Communicate
Connect
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Think
Upset
Writing
" Stories mimic life like certain insects mimic leaves and twigs. "
Mary Gaitskill
Stories
Leaves
Life
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Trying
You
Present
" 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
" Sometimes I decide I don't want to write because it isn't the thing for me to be doing right then, and I go do something else. "
Mary Gaitskill
Right
Me
Sometimes
" 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
" 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
" My parents had met in high school and married right after my father came back from World War II. They honeymooned in Paris and returned to that city when my father, in college on the G.I. Bill, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. "
Mary Gaitskill
Parents
School
War
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
I Can
World
Understanding
" Something like riding a horse - which I've recently started doing - requires courage, especially for me, as I started out being actually scared of horses. "
Mary Gaitskill
Courage
Riding
Me
" Somebody once said to me, 'If you want to be understood, don't write fiction.' "
Mary Gaitskill
Want
Understood
Said
" Anne Frank's diary made a very big impression on me at age 12 or so. "
Mary Gaitskill
Impression
Big
Age
" I used to start at about 10 at night and work until early morning. My preferred way to work is to start in the early afternoon and work until about 3, go do errands, have dinner, and then write for a few more hours in the evening. "
Mary Gaitskill
Morning
Work
Way
" There is a sense in which we have - like, I go in to teach a class; I may be somewhat different than I would be talking to you, although it's related because it's public. I'm very different with my roommate or my lover or my cats. But I don't know if that means you're acting, really, if you're being truthful. "
Mary Gaitskill
Talking
Know
Teach
" I think that with the proliferation of writing programs, people tend to forget that you also have to get used to working alone, and you have to be your own support. "
Mary Gaitskill
Alone
People
Support
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Thought
Feelings
Think
" 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 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Had
Time
Social
" 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
" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
You
Listening
Mystery