American - Novelist | November 11, 1954 -
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
SadTimeMistakesSadnessReality
Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally.
PeopleMeStoryViewExerciseWay
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.
TruthYouChooseFeelingsRunNever
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.
TimeManNightRestaurantSummer
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.
SeeingFeelingIntellectualShyWho
I found the world extraordinarily strange, having first left home at 15.
HomeWorldStrangeFirstLeftFound
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.
HomeChildrenBehaviorCreatingMeet
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.
PeopleTallTwo PeopleEverything
I wasn't ever anybody who had a political thing against marriage, but I just thought, 'Why would I want to do that?'
MarriageThoughtPoliticalWantWhy
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.
MotherMemoriesChildhoodPerfume
My parents had met in high school and married right after my father came back from World War II. They honeymooned in Paris and returned to that city when my father, in college on the G.I. Bill, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship.
FatherSchoolWarParentsCollege
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.
MotherGoodbyeBodySpecialSheOut
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