Mary Gaitskill

“Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially.”

“I've noticed women my age and a little younger, anywhere from 35 to 50, saying, 'Who would want to bring kids into a world like this?' Or, 'I don't want to spend my life that way. I want to do my artwork.' And they're very unapologetically stating this.”

“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.”

“I wasn't ever anybody who had a political thing against marriage, but I just thought, 'Why would I want to do that?'”