When my first book came out, it was very disorienting. My health went south. I didn't know how to relate to people.… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Sexuality is a place where people are very vulnerable and can be experiencing and embodying very raw forces that they don't really… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
There isn't going to be anyone to tell you what to do most of the time. It has to be your own… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
When I was a kid, I did want to be a boy. I didn't like to play with dolls, and most of… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
People still think that a woman who doesn't have children or doesn't want children is really lacking in something. I've seen this… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
People tend to set themselves up in patterns; something happens, it hurts them, then something similar happens, and - it's happened again!… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
You can teach people a lot about craft and various techniques, and you can certainly teach them to appreciate, but you cannot… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
I don't have an opinion about whether or not politics should appear more in fiction or not, generally. I think politics are… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
I think people try to make the most of their time on earth and also to fix their time on earth. They… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Human beings look so different from each other, voices are so different, everything about us is so individual, and that's so exciting… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
I think people hold back all kinds of things. And in a way, they just want to be nice. They want to… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Death is a big theme in the book, illness. What is that? It's a fact that human beings - no matter who… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Dani said this woman, with whom she’d lived for two years, had never known her. “I feel like people accept the first… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
I think if a woman is very happy with herself and at ease with her choices, it goes a long way toward… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
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… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Even happy situations can easily start to feel miserable. So, I think that people who consider themselves sophisticated or who are in… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
That's why every society on the planet has very definite rules, ideas about how sex should be regulated, how sex should be… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“I carry love wrapped in pain. That is my treasure and soon it will be yours.” — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“God famously doesn't afflict Job because of anything Job has done, but because he wants to prove a point to Satan. Twenty years later,… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
When you're writing a story, you're creating something of an artificial ending. — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct. — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“...loading your brain with subliminal messages.... How loathsome to turn a sadistic murder into entertainment [in the newspaper] -- and yet how hard not… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“The place Joanne is building inside [herself] has rooms for all of this. Not just rooms. Beautiful ones. For Karl and Jerry and Karen… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“Valiantly, he tried to bring his soul to life in the small thing through which it had to live, and it was crushed, again… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
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… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
When my first book came out, it was very disorienting. My health went south. I didn't know how to relate to people. I thought,… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
When he held her that way, she felt so happy that it disturbed her. After he left, it would take her hours to fall… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
“But life can give a lot. If you can’t see inside the heart no matter how you look, then why not look? Why not… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
Sexuality is a place where people are very vulnerable and can be experiencing and embodying very raw forces that they don't really understand and… — Mary Gaitskill Copy Share Image
