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" 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
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" 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. "
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" Somebody once said to me, 'If you want to be understood, don't write fiction.' "
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" 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. "
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" I found the world extraordinarily strange, having first left home at 15. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" Married, you're basically part of the herd, and that makes life easier in a lot of ways in terms of social support. But if you're not by nature a herd animal, you start to feel like you're passing. "
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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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Thought
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Think
" 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
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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
" 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
" Three writers together would be a nightmare of obstreperous self-consciousness. "
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" 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. "
Mary Gaitskill
Two
Signs
Band
" 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
" 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 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
" 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
Truth Is
People
Truth
" I had a strong conviction that there was something out there in the world that was wonderful. "
Mary Gaitskill
World
Strong
Conviction
" 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
" 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
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" I believe that the truest parts of people can be buried, and for many different reasons. "
Mary Gaitskill
Different
People
I Believe
" 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
" Anne Frank's diary made a very big impression on me at age 12 or so. "
Mary Gaitskill
Impression
Big
Age
" 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
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" 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. "
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Tall
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" 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
" 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
" 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. "
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Sometimes
People
Movies
" 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. "
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" It's true that your environment influences how you write. "
Mary Gaitskill
Environment
How
Your