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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
I think people try to make the most of their time on Earth and also to ‘fix’ their time on Earth. Mary Gaitskill Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
