How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one? — Rachel Cusk How Copy Share Image
Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it. — Rachel Cusk Emotionally Copy Share Image
“You could spend your whole life’, she said, ‘trying to trace events back to your own mistakes.” — Rachel Cusk Life Copy Share Image
To be optimistic about something that is absolutely unknown to you is unfounded. — Rachel Cusk About Copy Share Image
Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable. — Rachel Cusk Criticism Copy Share Image
I absolutely don't dislike children - I would choose their company over adult company any time. — Rachel Cusk Adult Copy Share Image
I have absolutely no concept of work, except for university. But I like to talk to people a lot about their jobs. — Rachel Cusk Career Copy Share Image
Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity. — Rachel Cusk Child Copy Share Image
It is expected that a children's story will raise a difficulty and then resolve it: increasingly, this resolution is so prompt and… — Rachel Cusk Adversity Copy Share Image
I was born abroad, but my parents were both English. Still, those few years of separation, and then coming back to England… — Rachel Cusk Ability Copy Share Image
The woman who has her being in marriage and motherhood has become part of antithetical reality, revoking property from the woman who… — Rachel Cusk Become Copy Share Image
“For many women,’ she said, ‘having a child is their central experience of creativity, and yet the child will never remain a… — Rachel Cusk Children Copy Share Image
If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption -… — Rachel Cusk Because Copy Share Image
It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiasticall y… — Rachel Cusk Destruction Copy Share Image
“But what other people thought was no longer of any help to me. Those thoughts only existed within certain structures, and I… — Rachel Cusk Existed Copy Share Image
A sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad, and that to establish its character is a question of the… — Rachel Cusk Adjustment Copy Share Image
“There was a poem, she said, by Beckett that he had written twice, once in French and once in English, as if… — Rachel Cusk Beckett Copy Share Image
There is always shame in the creation of an expressive work, whether it's a book or a clay pot. Every artist worries… — Rachel Cusk Art Copy Share Image
“Whatever we might wish to believe about ourselves, we are only the result of how others have treated us.” — Rachel Cusk Believe Copy Share Image
I suppose, I said, it is one definition of love, the belief in something that only the two of you can see. — Rachel Cusk Belief Copy Share Image
I don't go to church any more, but I think that Catholicism is rather like the brand they use on cattle: I… — Rachel Cusk Brands Copy Share Image
The anorexic body is held in the grip of will alone; its meaning is far from stable. What it says - 'Notice… — Rachel Cusk Alone Copy Share Image
The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that others are demanding to be given it… — Rachel Cusk Childhood Copy Share Image
The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool.… — Rachel Cusk Bad mother Copy Share Image
The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesnt want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system… — Rachel Cusk Free Copy Share Image
“She herself, she said, had visited the very depths of disillusionment in the male character by being honest in precisely this way:… — Rachel Cusk Disillusionment Copy Share Image
There's this really good line in 'Women in Love' where Ursula says, 'I always thought it was a sin to be unhappy.'… — Rachel Cusk Actually Copy Share Image
The anorexic is out to prove how little she needs, how little she can survive on; she is out, in a sense,… — Rachel Cusk Anorexic Copy Share Image
I don't think I knew that you could be a novelist. I think a lot of my students are in the same… — Rachel Cusk Actually Copy Share Image
It's a taboo that comes back over and over, to suggest that women can feel divided - that you can love your… — Rachel Cusk Away Copy Share Image
Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like,… — Rachel Cusk Assertion Copy Share Image
“the disgust that exists indelibly between men and women and that you are always trying to purge with what you call frankness.… — Rachel Cusk Disgust Copy Share Image
I have a romantic conception of the writer's life, and the sort of writer's life that I admire is probably a childless… — Rachel Cusk Admire Copy Share Image
In domestic life, the woman's value is inherent, unquantifiable; at home she exchanges proven values for mythological ones. She 'wants' to be… — Rachel Cusk Desire Copy Share Image
A book is not an example of 'women's writing' simply because it is written by a woman. Writing may become 'women's writing'… — Rachel Cusk Because Copy Share Image
The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all… — Rachel Cusk Distinctive Copy Share Image
There are certain types of slightly hysterical human characters who, rather than creating, walk around with a sense of their own potential… — Rachel Cusk Art Copy Share Image
“we’ve become convinced that if we say even a word out of place we’ve marked them forever, but of course that is… — Rachel Cusk Desires Copy Share Image
As it stands, motherhood is a sort of wilderness through which each woman hacks her way, part martyr, part pioneer; a turn… — Rachel Cusk Being a mother Copy Share Image
For years I had lived in my body half-consciously, ignoring it mostly, dismissing its agendas wherever I could, and forever pressing it… — Rachel Cusk Abuse Copy Share Image
