Rachel Kushner Quotes
I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
Quotes to Explore
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I think having a great idea is vastly overrated. I know it sounds kind of crazy and counterintuitive. I don't think it matters what the idea is, almost. You need great execution.
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I just thought it was unconscionable for the Congress to insert itself into this debate. We are particularly unqualified to make that decision and to intrude ourselves into the lives of this family.
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I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just shut up and be happy?'
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Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
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I gave up painting by 16. I secretly thought I would have been Rembrandt by then.
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You get on the radio by writing your own songs. But we had the dilemma of not being able to play anywhere because we weren't able to play anything that anyone wanted to hear. So we learned songs that we thought that we could do without puking.
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To be shapely when you're in the seventh grade is not exactly what everyone's looking for, or they weren't then, as someone was telling me the other day. now, that's like a really great thing to do, to be, but then it wasn't.
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I must be like the princess who felt the pea through seven mattresses; each book is a pea.
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A couple of my friends started having babies, and I thought, 'Maybe one day, with the right guy.' I have to find the guy first.
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Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
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That's the great thing about entering a convent: There are things that you simply can't do, so you don't have to worry about them.
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I was never really a Mod. I thought I was more of a beatnik with the brown corduroy jacket, blue jeans, etc. I loved the music Mods liked, and I loved the clothes, but I didn't have any money to spend on them.
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On the weekends, I do the usual parental things, going to the boys' football tournaments or getting out for a hike along the Great Wall.
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I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.
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The art world is never going to be popular like the NFL, but more people are buying art and I think that's cushioning, to a great extent, our art-market cycles.
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At one point I thought changing my name might help with privacy, but that was before the Internet.
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Every year, I take 10 of my best friends from high school on a trip. That's kind of my way for saying thanks to them for being so loyal, for keeping me honest, and for just being great friends throughout this craziness.
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It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.
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We too are also inspired by the life and example of Jose Marti, who is not only a Cuban and Latin American hero but justly honoured by all who struggle to be free.
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My dad was a musician who went to Berklee, and he made me learn piano when I was five.
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My belief as a Christian is when we receive Christ as salvation, that that gives us a guarantee for Heaven.
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I miss the anonymity that comes with New York because everyone around you is so immersed in their own journey.
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I'm glad we haven't got newspapers now. It's been much nicer without them.
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I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
