Mary Gaitskill Quotes
I didn't start thinking about what I wanted to do professionally until I was 17. I was a hippie, but I did write.

Quotes to Explore
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The scramble to get into college is going to be so terrible in the next few years that students are going to put up with almost anything, even an education.
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The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous.
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I was a hot-dog stand lady, I was an orphan housemother, I was a waitress 3 or 4 times. All of those jobs did not have good bosses. They basically told you what to do, when to do and when to hop. And I just didn't like that very much.
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The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there's no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social.
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I traveled a full two years with 'Language of Flowers.'
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I went into acting as psychotherapy, and it's still a work in progress.
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I want to be able, as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye.
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Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, great friends.
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When service members are discharged, we should express our gratitude for their profound personal sacrifice, not hand them a bill for their hospital food.
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Seasonal flu is now a pandemic that lasts for years and years because you've got so many people that it's jumping back between northern and southern hemispheres and moving itself around the world. By the time it gets back to where it started, it's changed sufficiently so that people are no longer immune.
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I am still shocking people today, and I don't know why. Is it because I'm a woman talking about sex and men? One magazine said that no one writes sex in the back of a Bentley better than Jackie Collins.
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I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
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Like in nature, I like things which are based on a few simple principles, even though their manifestation can be very rich.
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I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.
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Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'
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Sexuality is who you are personally attracted to... But gender identity is who you are in your soul.
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In a kind of a way there's a bit of that happening now so we have to be careful to preserve our culture.
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It feels good when you come to a place like Oklahoma to charge up the batteries. I need that.
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I'm intimidated by anyone with a British accent.
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A mistake I've made is I have not worried sufficiently about the art world, really. I have not concerned myself with the other people in the art world. I've been a little too singular, and that's a mistake I've made. But everybody makes a mistake of some kind, and if that's my only mistake, I'm happy.
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Our flawed mechanisms of perception and thought are not a cause for grief, but an opportunity to evolve, for an internal evolution of consciousness that will also make possible, in a sustainable form, our aspirations toward what we call individual success and global progress.
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I just want to serve up the goodness and grace that's been given to me because I made a choice that lined up with my passion. And that's what I tell my kids.
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I was raised by the Christian Brothers, who believe in that, fortunately. They were, to me, the most rebellious arm of the Catholic Church - and one of the most liberal and forward thinking.
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I didn't start thinking about what I wanted to do professionally until I was 17. I was a hippie, but I did write.